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.
There is a lot of humor here, and of course this is going to feed every prurient interest out there, but John.tv is a video vigilante site that features, you guessed it, people buying sex from prostitutes. This is one site you just do not want to end up on.
By using home cameras, YouTube, and their own web site, Bryan Bates has taken on the efforts to curb prostitution in his Oklahoma town. Link to site is right here, and could provide hours of amusement. They are also seeking donations to help continue the good fight.
Tags: john.tv, prostitution, Oklahoma, video vigilante, site, humor, do not want
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
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.
Blue Print Ventures has a series of videos featuring the entrepreneur Gary Snoman, that are about fall down funny to read. Some of them are also out on YouTube, meaning you can cut and share them. So what it is really like being a Venture Capitalist, let Gary show you the way.
There is something elegant about a VC fund making a video like this. Of course a lot of this is also scary if you have ever worked with or known a VC person, they do act like some of this many times over. Then there is the downside, it is all work most of the time. Not for the faint at heart. In the mean time enjoy the laugh.
Have to admit, this makes for some serious humor.
Tags: blueprint ventures, vc, funding, money, humor, gary snoman, lots of laughs
Marcelo posted a note that Adam MacBeth has been building a Google map of all the software companies in Seattle. It is self service, if you own a software company, then you can pin it on the map. It makes an interesting contrast to the map of Silicon Valley that we are all so familiar with.
Seattle Software Companies . This is a map of companies in Seattle that do software work. It is not limited to companies headquartered in Seattle, but includes any company with a development office in the area. I’ve tried to keep companies off the map that are out of business or not yet viable, but please let me know if there is something that needs to be removed or edited. Source: Adam MacBeth
It is a neat map, then Adam’s blog is also interesting, in the longer run though, use the map, it is at least very interesting to see where companies are clustering.
This one is interesting, with the democratic race sewn up for the presidential primary, who has a more comprehensive technology platform, McCain or Obama. It is still Obama who actually has a technology platform to work with.
Read Obama’s technology platform here and it is enough to warm up the hearts of many folks who want a free and open internet. As well as acknowledging that we have a generation of people who are hitting the job market who know how to use the internet. Web 2.0 over the last few years has transformed how we do things, along with updating our infrastructure to manage all the content that is coming as well as what is already here.
That is the sharp demarcation between the two candidates for people who follow technology, one who acknowledges we have technology and can use it to our benefit, and a candidate that does not have a plan on his web site. Frankly we would love to see some kind of platform on McCains web site about where he wants to take technology.
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered that only an informed policy can provide. Right now we are seeing a subtle erosion of what we can do in relationship to fair use, copyright, time shifting, reselling, and a host of other things we can do with the materials, entertainment and goods that we purchase. The head long collision between corporations and users that we have all been suffering under requires a strong leader to bring some sanity back to where we are going with Web 2.0.
Maybe we will get lucky, at least there is one candidate left on the field that has an idea of what they want to do. As well Obama has been very effective in using the internet to get the word out, something to think about as we vote in five months. If you can use it, or have those around you use the internet effectively, we might just stand a chance at copyright reform, patent reform, data portability, security, privacy, education, and just about everything else that relies on technology today.
