This has been previously published on ITToolbox here and this raises some seriously interesting questions about colleges, text books, and the culture of free sharing. Not sure if this is good, bad, or ugly.
With the high cost of textbooks, there is no surprise that a group has gotten together to develop and deliver a torrent site that deals with nothing but college text books.
Textbook torrents starts off on legally dubious grounds, but that is also highly likely not going to stop the explosion of this web site. It is not about student’s spending money on books, it is really about folks getting something for free, and in this case it is college text books. This is interesting because most of the colleges that I interact with on a daily basis have an e-resource process where the college text books can be downloaded for free by the students. Of course it comes with Adobe DRM, but in general, if you want an e-book, you can get it for free from the college. Or not really free, e-resources are built into the cost of the class, and you pay for them even if you don’t use them.
A note on the Torrent Textbooks site says that Pearson Education (one of the major suppliers of text books) issued a C&D (Cease and Desist) note to the web site which they honored. But in light of other torrent sites being forced to turn over IIS/Apache logs and user information they state with a well deserved bit of paranoia
This is not a happy day, but I want to take the opportunity to make a few comments. First, I swear to you that I will do everything in my power to prevent the server’s logs from falling into the hands of those that might use them against you. If that means bankrupting myself in the process, so be it. I would prefer that it not come to that, but I have drawn a line which I will not cross no matter the cost. In the next few days, I will be drafting an agreement that all users must accept in order to continue using the site. This will be mutual in nature, with both parties agreeing to abide by certain guidelines and to uphold certain responsibilities. It will hopefully put us all in a more comfortable legal position. Source: TextbookTorrents.com
Right now any bittorrent site that deals with any pirated information is in trouble, frankly they would have been better off making a subgroup at The Pirate Bay rather than striking out on their own. Expect the shut down very soon, or the raid by the textbook police.
Publishers are in new ground with people sharing book torrents; they have not generally taken the uber aggressive stances that the RIAA and MPAA have in the past. But if Textbook Torrents takes off, this might be the straw that starts the brutal backlash lawsuit frenzy ala RIAA/MPAA tactics.
So far the publishing group has not sought to take legal action against individual student downloaders, as the Recording Industry Association of America has done in its campaign to stamp out the illegal trading of music at colleges. The book-publishing group has not sought to shut down entire Web sites that offer downloads either, said Mr. McCoyd. Instead, officials are doing research on the extent of the problem and asking Web-site owners to remove individual files. “We’ve just tried to keep sweeping away these infringements as they continue to come online,” he said. Source: Chronicle.com
In all it is a good thing that the publishers have not gone after individual downloader’s, but as time moves on and this problem gets worst, maybe the book publishers will try something different. Co-opt, subscription services, anything would be better than the strong arm tactics that torrent users have seen in the past. This is not likely to go away, what will be interesting is to see how the publishers attempt to work with sites in the future.
I have been working on a book on how to be an Amazon seller, some of the tricks and tips that I have learned in nearly a year of selling books on Amazon. Just as I was getting into getting the proof developed with the publisher, along comes a person threatening to sue because they were quoted in the book. The interesting debate about Fair Use, permission, and the rest of it, and in looking at what passes the “reasonable person test”, the book got pulled.
Specifically this is the area that I seriously would run into trouble with. From the Copyright Office notice on what is fair use the following four rules apply in determining what is and what is not fair use. The interesting part is that I can punch holes in the argument on why you want to sue me based on these four rules.
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
I would fail this test, as it is a book for commercial purposes, in other words, I plan on making money off the quotes that I would have used. While it would be great to call it educational, and the express purpose of the book is to educate people on how to be a better Amazon seller, it still falls under commercial purposes. The idea of writing the book is to make money.
The problem here is that this will require a substantial rewrite of the book to deal with this, and rather than directly quoting, provide the resource name, and where they can get additional information. While not optimal, this would seem the best way to work on removing potentially infringing information out of the book, and getting back into the publishing track.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
The nature of the copyrighted work, the quotes are pulled from a forum, that has a clear copyright notice on the Amazon site, but since the quotes were pulled from there, it is possible to ask Amazon for permission to quote from the seller’s community. This would be the optimal way of getting around this, and the copyright office points out that if in doubt, seek permission, or show that you made every single attempt that a reasonable person could make in getting permission to use their content.
3. Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
There are 4 specific quotes that need to be seriously revised to meet the substantiality portion, while the “300 word limit” was more of a secret handshake, with the nature of copyright rules, fair use in flux, with the confusing court cases around them, erring on the side of caution here is a much better idea. Cutting down or removing the quotes in its entirety would be the best way of going around this in lieu of getting permission from Amazon to use quotes from the system.
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
This one is interesting, and could go either way in terms of how it is interpreted, the effect on the potential market is negligible. There is no Amazon book that is an excerpt from the sellers community, Amazon has not monetized the site at all, no ads, and the community participants self post information there. What would be a detriment though in the longer run would be if people thought they could be or would be quoted in a book, the loss of trust in the forum. While public, the impression that I get is that people believe that they are talking in a trusted community of peers, and to have their information published in a book is a breach of trust. That would have an influence on the marketability and use of the Amazon Sellers forum in the longer run, people might stop using it, which could have an influence or impact on the 3rd party sellers system used at Amazon.
Interesting in how you can look at things to go for or against the idea of “fair use” when looking at how the publication of words and idea’s in a book is somehow more substantial than the information that is put on a public forum.
In the mean time, the book has been pulled as a just in case, and a substantial rewrite needs to take place to meet a definitive “reasonable person test” when it comes to fair use.
Utter sheer amazement, the sad part is that it is perfectly true, the music industry is all over radio right now to pay royalties for the first time ever; saying not to pay the artists for air time is tantamount to piracy.
The interesting part, read the wired story here, is that while Rome burns down to the ground, artists are playing around with new revenue models, people have completely altered how they search and consume music, the real question is just how viable is plain old radio on top of that. While independent stations might get a break in the annual fee’s, the larger radio stations will end up with the very short end of the stick if this kind of thing happens.
Many issues on how people can use their own digital media, or someone else’s digital media in what was formerly a fairly dull industry of payola, excess, and the host of other things that go along with it. One cannot but look at all these “last acts of a desperate company” and wonder where music is really going to go.
If we have to play something every time we start it off, that is going to be a real problem down the road, the money is just not there, at 99 cents or at any cost. Some will be able to afford it, but not many. Frankly, if radio is piracy, then we are all in for a very long dark night in relationship to copyright, what we buy, what we listen to, and the entertainment that we might just enjoy.
Gone will be the days of listening to the radio to hear a new band, gone will be the days of streaming radio in the office, gone will be many things that have been a way of life for everyone since the time radio was invented. So much to lose, for everyone.
In one of the weirdest looks at people’s thinking, let’s ask the audience first what does “Don’t be evil” mean to you. Did you immediately think of Microsoft, RIAA, and Big Oil? The Hillary Obama issues. Republicans? What did you think of, odds are highly likely you might have also thought of Google’s famous tag line. In an interview reported by Yahoo News comes along this tasty tidbit:
In an on-stage interview with writer Ken Auletta of the New Yorker magazine, Schmidt said “Don’t be evil” is meant to provoke internal debate over what constitutes ethical corporate behavior, rather than representing an absolute moral position.
“We don’t have an ‘Evilmeter’ we can sort of apply — you know — what is good and what is evil,” Schmidt said before an audience of media industry professionals at an event sponsored by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School in San Francisco. Source: Yahoo news
There is a sense of humor here, ethical corporate practices aside, how you feel about the latest round of political hoo-ha, or just about anything else, the idea of “Don’t be Evil” has many connotations, and is interpretable by just about anyone in any case as something different. “Don’t be evil” sounds good, but it is also just a sound bite. It obviously has nothing to do with what we thought it meant when Google started using it.
As Google wins, grows, takes more market share, the stunningly wonderful thing that no one thinks of is that as Google gets bigger, its corporate size will get bigger. Eventually they will end up being the Microsoft of their day, or the IBM of their day, or the Kodak, or the GM, Ford, or other companies that seem to get to a certain size and then implode under the weight of best corporate practices, middle management political games, and the host of other things that will start degrading the ability of a company to keep on doing good things.
Google might not be there today, but eventually they will get there, and they will have to deal with some young upstart that has a better mouse trap. For some this day can not be too soon, for others, it will happen when it happens, and for the rest, they hope that the day will never come.
In the mean time plug in your “evilmeter” and “Don’t be evil”. There is a sense of irony here.
Tags: google, tag line, don’t be evil, growth, atrophy, examples, ibm, Microsoft, ford, GM, startup, money, adventure, fun
BoingBoing, Enterprise 2.0 and Joho the Blog are all covering a talk given by CIA folks at the Web 2.0 conference about the Intellipedia, or how to kill a company in some easy business oriented steps. Quoting an old 1944 “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” from the US Strategic Services, they quote, most of the things we do today in business. There is a sense of Irony here, and most of it can be seen in many of the larger organizations that we either work at or have visited.
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per¬sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera¬tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of com¬munications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason¬able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris¬ diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
While amusing, the scary part is that a lot of this is stuff we either see every day, in many companies, or we don’t see in smaller companies that have a well defined goal, with everyone pulling towards it. No wonder the startup community does cool things, while larger companies, or companies on their way to largeness at some point fall over and loose, until they streamline and get smaller again.
I can think of car companies, camera companies, big blue companies, software companies, and some search engines that are immediately coming to mind.
Says something about staying small.
Tags: intelipeida, cia, sabotage, business, fun, idea
Amazon suffered intermittent outages yesterday and into today with their platform, and theories run amuck, from DDoS to their new video platform causing issues, the point here is that no one over at Amazon is really saying what the issues are, or what is really happening. When you provide the back end infrastructure and the front end infrastructure, we all want to know.
The problematic thing here is the transparency issue; if it really was a DDoS they could milk this puppy for all the PR marketing spin on the face of the planet and come out stronger. If it was the video delivery system that they launched, and then we also understand and be forgiving of that too, hey live and learn. If it was a bad upgrade that caused issue, then we could all commiserate, all of us have at some point gone through an upgrade that caused us down time.
The real issue is the cloud of darkness that seems to have descended on the entire system, no one knows for sure leading to rampant speculation of what the problem is, and what is being done (if anything) about whatever the problem is. That is the buggy issue of the day, no one outside the company knows why for sure, we all speculate, some theories are better than others, and what we do know is that Amazon is being buggy, meaning lost sales, lost consumers, and a small bit of annoyance from the 3rd party sellers.
Probably not what they want today.
Tags: amazon, outage, buggy, conspiracy theory, who knows, silence, ddos
Ad Age is running an article on selling ads on your self created YouTube videos, and given the content that I have the sales of advertising is something that I am loath to do. Not because the videos are bad, I am actively seeking a sponsor, but that because most of my videos are about information security, and just how trivial easy it is to break into things using Google or other search engines, ad sales should be restricted to companies that provide a solution in that space.
The only problem, no one offers any kind of technology against what is in the Google search engine when it comes to finding flaws in people’s web sites.
Although the advertising campaign could be interesting “Don’t do this to yourself you mind numbing…” add what ever politically correct salesy statement works there.
Or just poor programming practices like in this video.
How do you sell ads when your primary video blog is all about showing how crazy some people are when it comes to security? As in, the idea of Security is something only for other folks, not for us. What kind of advertising works here?
The other question, is given the nature of youtube fandom, what kind of advertising works best for dancing babies, or people getting hit in the crotch by a ball, bat, golf club, choose instrument of pain here. Then what about advertising for stuff that is pulled off the networks (the Viacomm lawsuit still lingers) that the person pulling the video off the air is selling advertising on someone else’s work. Mashups, media, advertising, fluid copyright, weird videos, disaster looms.
Amazon suffered intermittent outages yesterday and into today with their platform, and theories run amuck, from DDoS to their new video platform causing issues, the point here is that no one over at Amazon is really saying what the issues are, or what is really happening. When you provide the back end infrastructure and the front end infrastructure, we all want to know. 
