I see some entreprising university students who sell facsimiles of their textbooks to their classmates. The book is scanned and saved in USB stick for convenient copying. Especially when the student has a tablet, the soft copy version of the textbook is easier to read and more convenient when it comes to searching some parts. I’ve been thinking that if I were a student now, I would probably prefer to buy a soft copy than the hardcopy of the book because the softcopy is preserved while the hard copy can be torn.
However a student doing this is breaking the law and probably any student honor code that might exist. As such they are open to be expelled and may have trouble finding another school to take them. So, the up side is you make money by stealing--the down side is you might ruin your educational chances. Professors (the people who write textbooks) tend to be very unsympathetic about this sort of thing. If you want an ebook, the publishers probably sell them. If you need a cheaper book you can get a second hand copy, and scan it yourself if you want it in digital format.
I wouldn't sell it because that is breaking the law, however, I have scanned chapters of a library book that I needed to read but didn't have time. Many academic libraries only loan books in demand for a few days and you either have to read fast or photocopy or scan what you need. Now if you were to loan your photocopy or PDF to a friend that's different, but if you make money then that is copyright infringement and should not be encouraged.
Very true. This is violating the Copy right law. It is not legal and anyone who is found to be breaking the law can be punished or fined. Students should avoid such things. They have their whole life in front of them and once their name comes in the police records, then they will not able to get good jobs etc. This practice should be discouraged.
Ignoring the fact that this is illegal, unethical, and my professor once said he was waiting for someone to try this in his class so he could shread their USB stick (with his teeth) there are very good practical reasons not to. Most textbooks for courses rely on you having the most up to date edition, and update yearly to include recent discoveries (and so the author makes more money). If the copied book is an older version, it isn't going to work for the course. Also many colleges let students sell back their textbooks at the end of the year for credit towards the following year's books and updated editions. You can't do that with an ebook.
I have been using xerox pages of college textbooks while I was studying in college and until I completed my 4-year course. I just selected the particular text that our instructors are using for our discussion. Nobody has complained about that and it is impossible for the author to know that we are recopying or reproducing his book. And never ever our college instructors mentioned or gave credits to the author of the books which serve for his reference in teaching. We are not indeed particular with the Copyright Law or whatever applicable laws. In short, we were ignorant about that matter.
@anupamas2 It becomes a civil or criminal offence if the purpose of scanning such books is for monetary gains. On the other hand if books were being scanned for the singular aim of having access to the materials for study purposes only then I think that can be understood.
Anyway, another bad thing would be downloading the book illegally from the net. It could fry your computer (viruses etc.) In that sense, it's like music and movie downloads. However, though, some probably feel the action to illegally download is brave and/or that what they're doing isn't illegal - kind of like with scanning. Does anyone think when you own it - you own it?
I would not be too surprised if this happens more than we may think, and that is mostly because textbooks are crazy expensive. When you do not really use the whole thing and maybe just a couple of chapters then this actually makes some sense.
My first job was about scanning library books using Abbey finereader. And we used to keep tab on the data scanned. And then people used to do the copy pasting of their content. I am not sure how the scanning and the work used to be in that time. But it seems like the book copying and the scanning was good. There are some of the options were there for the content copying into Word file. So it was good on that point.
I think it would only be wrong if you are copying to sell. Other than this, I don't see anything wrong to make copies of a book for personal use. It is similar to borrowing a book from the library or downloading a e-book free from a site.
I think some schools do not teach much about copyright issues, and hence some students might not be aware of that. I still remember we were told this very seriously and every time when we did assignment, we have to follow certain rules to cite the source. When I talked about this with some friends, they have no ideas about this at all. So I think schools or government should take this into consideration and teach the kids about copyright even when they are young. I always prefer a hardcopy, especially if I were to study for examinations, a physical book is definitely more comfortable for me.
