
Rampant Piracy Will Be The Kindle DX’s Savior - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/09/rampant-piracy-will-be-the-kindle-dxs-savior/
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falsestprophet
_Just find the book you want in PDF form, upload it to your Kindle over USB,
and you’ve got a perfectly readable and convenient textbook._

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that students are just going to
skip the $500 kindle part of this plan.

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jkincaid
I don't think so. You've been able to get PDF versions of many books (both
textbooks and novels) for a few years. I've never met anyone who actually
printed one out or read an entire book from their computer, save for maybe a
leaked Harry Potter book.

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ramchip
As a student, I can say that the point isn't always to read the whole book:
the kind of textbook you'd want in a PDF form tends to be large reference
books which you can search quickly in a PDF reader. But I'm used to working
and reading whole books on the screen, and believe it or not there are quite a
few legal ones: for example I work with a few art books whose copyright has
expired a long time ago, and I read a lot of research papers in PDF.

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gyeh
An alternative business model for the textbook industry (even with rampant
piracy):

 _"... publishers could move to a more sustainable model in which the textbook
is priced close to the cost of printing and shipping (say, $20), while all
students are charged a reasonable fee (say, $60) for what really matters,
which is the content of the textbook, the labs and homework exercises. Other
industries already use this model -- think hardware and software, or razors
and razor blades."_

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/05...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/05/07/AR2009050704299.html)

~~~
marcusbooster
This won't be popular but how about; classes choose which textbooks they
require, total cost per student is determined and added on to tuition, the
university can now distribute copies in digital or paper format. Keeping it
all electronic would lower costs all the way around and still get the authors
paid.

~~~
ramchip
My uni offers access to quite a few engineering books through
www.books24x7.com, which is somewhat similar to what you suggest. Teachers
usually suggest paper books though, so people can bring them to lectures, etc.
(about half the teachers forbid using laptops in class).

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Herring
Thing is publishers actually have a good chance of convincing schools to add
textbooks to the tuition.

