College Being

Textbook piracy, though not even closely as prevent as music and movies, has been around since PDFs were invented. The New York Times has recently discovered that it exists:

AFTER scanning his textbooks and making them available to anyone to download free, a contributor at the file-sharing site PirateBay.org composed a colorful message for “all publishers” of college textbooks, warning them that “myself and all other students are tired of getting” ripped off. (The contributor’s message included many ripe expletives, but hey, this is a family newspaper.)

Though it is needed to say that the Pirate Bay does not actually post the illegal files, but instead users of the site do.

How do publishers establish that textbooks should cost so much? I remember back in my high school days, I bought my Gardner’s 1,000-page Art History book for about $50. Now, my 200 page physics book is going to cost $200? I don’t see the rationality behind it. Aren’t college students supposed to be poor like me, or is there something I do not know.

I have always liked owning my own books. I even buy them new for the extra cleanliness. But after seeing my textbooks are going to cost almost $900 for this next semester, I am almost inclined to go on the Pirate Bay and search for every single one of them.

[Source: New York Times]

Note: College Being does not directly support downloading of illegal material. We only subtlety mention all the positives about it.