Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 00:54:59 -0400

What's confusing to me here is the authors' demand that Cengage ask their
permission to include their textbooks in the subscription model. My
understanding is that textbooks are created as "works made for hire," which
means that the publisher owns the copyright, not the author(s). So on what
grounds are the authors demanding that Cengage seek their permission?  It's
unfortunate that the article Jim linked to does not stipulate or cite what
term(s) of the contract are under dispute. Cengage obviously believes that its
contract does give it authority to include the textbooks in this service. I'd
be surprised if Cengage's lawyers did not write the contract in such a way as
to make this subscription service possible to implement in the way it has. But
I guess we'll have to wait and see how a court looks at the dispute.

Sandy Thatcher


On Mon, May 21, 2018 11:48 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 20:02:10 -0700
>
>​Joe, that's helpful clarification (inclusive access one thing, aggregation
>another).
>
>I said and say that libraries will be pressed to take a role in mitigating
>the perceived problem with the price of textbooks.  But I will also say
>that complaints that goods and services in these sectors are too costly
>often seem to me to mask other problems.  After all, they (price of health
>care, drugs, journals, college tuition, college textbooks) wouldn't be so
>pricey were it not for the fact that plenty of people are paying the
>price.  Our first-order concern is usually that someone whom we think
>should have access to the good or service can't afford them.
>
>But other things are going on.  To take just this sector, the role and
>function of the classic textbook has evolved and it's not clear that the
>expensive textbook propagates because of an intelligent view of their
>pedagogical effectiveness.  Show me a bigger, shinier, better illustrated,
>more comprehensive book than the one I've been using and I, the average
>faculty member, am not unwilling to think that perhaps I *should* make it
>available to my students -- and that's where your point about the assigner
>isn't the payer is important.  The best work I know to attack the price
>problem is really attacking the pedagogy problem:  what do students really
>need in order to succeed?  Something they will actually use and benefit
>from is more helpful than 800 lavishly illustrated pages.
>
>My point here is just to say that prices and the ensuing economic
>adjustments are an interesting set of phenomena.  But they shouldn't blind
>us to what are actually harder problems to solve.
>
>Jim O'Donnell
>ASU