Woohoo, congrats Andrew.... :)

[wingman]

Yes, you textbook people are so honest in your business dealings. When you try to sell US students a book at $200 and then turn around and sell to international students the same book for $40, there's a big problem. When you are using the same textbook the next semester and will only buy back my barely used one for $5, there's a problem.

Free collaborative efforts have spawned some of the most incredible ideas and products, the most prominent this day and age has been Linux. It is a collaborative idea nearly 20 years in the making and is embedded in many of todays home electronics.

If Andrew chooses to produce his map for free, then so be it. (I could see charging for the print and lamination if he comes out with a paper version).

I am not suggesting that he charge for it at all and i agree he can do whatever he wishes with it. As to texts, I see you are beginning to understand marketing...let andrew explain market segmentation and protest to your university regarding your bookstore poliicies. My post was directed at the comment he made with regard to the selling of an existing devil's map. Opportunity cost is a difficult concept to grasp...any action has as a cost its next best alternative. Having used linux to run mail servers back in the early days of the internet (remember bitnet?) i certainly spent a few minutes getting it configured.

[DeWayne]

Bill, so who are you publishing through that actually pays a royalty worth collecting? Has academia changed that much over the past decade? Researchers publish for fame, not fortune, unless you count teaching at a "publish or perish" mill where lack of publication means termination of tenure hopes. I totally agree with sdenny with regard to the textbook issue, which is why I made a lot of my own personal material available free of charge to my students; I was there to teach them, not to profit from them nor see the publishing houses get rich. To each his own I suppose. Just think how much knowledge would be available to the average man if more people thought like Andrew; just think how far that would advance our civilization.

[fixxervi6]

Bill, so who are you publishing through that actually pays a royalty worth collecting? Has academia changed that much over the past decade? Researchers publish for fame, not fortune, unless you count teaching at a "publish or perish" mill where lack of publication means termination of tenure hopes. I totally agree with sdenny with regard to the textbook issue, which is why I made a lot of my own personal material available free of charge to my students; I was there to teach them, not to profit from them nor see the publishing houses get rich. To each his own I suppose. Just think how much knowledge would be available to the average man if more people thought like Andrew; just think how far that would advance our civilization.

Advancing civilization won't line peoples pockets with greenbacks so people don't care.

[MengTze]

It must be a slow time in some people's life to be semi-arguing this. It is not even an argument by any stretch of the imagination.



Yes, I could just ignore it............but I am in slack times too....

[aainslie]

Bill, it was a tongue in cheek comment at best. I'm not sure why you got riled up. I know that Jeff (since we're now going there) thinks that I'm spreading his map around, and indeed has some weird ideas about calling the FBI to report me. But what the hell, if tongues are going to exit cheeks, here goes.

Please ask him to do so at any time. I've posted him my address and phone number before, and a simple internet search will produce my work address. Hell, I'll call the FBI and give myself in if he wants - just ask him to forward me the number he'd like me to call. What a joke.

It IS true that MULTIPLE pdf files of that map exist created by different people, and it is true that I have been emailed one before. it is NOT true that I created this map or was responsible for its dissemination. He also seems to think I have it on a website somewhere. Really? Would someone like to give me a URL for it? I now that at least one of the creators would only send it out to people who had purchased Jeff's map. If - and only if - someone is able to subpoena me successfully I'll divulge who that is. But several dozen other people with the map can tell you who that is too.

He'll have to use someone else as his whipping horse. And seriously, I think that you would know me better. I'm a big believer in the value of intellectual property.

However... and there are some big howevers. Jeff needs to learn a bit about how those laws work. There is the law of fair use:

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Which I pointed out to Jeff the first time he started this nonsense applied to Terry's video. In fact, a read of all this would be of use to him:

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

Anyway, I still have to figure out what I've done wrong. There's a pdf file of Jeff's map that hundreds - possibly thousands - of people have. I was not responsible for its creation or dissemination. I believe in intellectual property. I've repeatedly stated that I paid full price for that map, and love it.

But boy, and I sick of threats, veiled and unveiled, as well as nonsense like that which you propagate above, against my own character. And you, Bill, are far too clever a man to be joining in this nonsense.

If you want to discuss this be a man and call me at 310 9042982. Not this veiled nonsense on this website.

Boy. And I thought we were friends.

I will point out that I'm not going to sit here taking this nonsense. If people want to react in this way, then I will act back against them. I'm not into physical responses, but I'm willing to debate, mock, and otherwise respond to this puerile, infuriating, petty nonsense. Which was the tenet of my earlier jibe.

Oh - and Bill is of course perfectly right about books charging different prices in different places. Market segmentation and price discrimination is one of the most important ideas in marketing. What on earth makes anyone think that only one price should be charged for a product? I'm not going to go into it now, but there's a huge amount of social good that comes from price discrimination. If book manufacturers were forced to see al one price they wouldn't drop to $40, they'd only cater to the high price segment at $100, and many third world students would be less educated. And why do you think you're osed money for your used book? The value is in your reading it - and it's used! So you've taken the intellectual content. There's a paper by a famous economist at yale on textbook versions to exactly this point, demonstrating that frequent updates on textbooks (thereby killing the old textbook's 2nd hand market value) helps support the intellectual content of that book. Look up Judy Chevalier for more.

[OFG-1]

Well Andrew, it is clear that you are a scoff law and scoundrel. And the FBI? What do the Fu**ing Building Inspectors have to do with this?

I am now concerned about MY valuable intellectual property. So I give all of you permission to use any of these ideas:

1 - Recycled cat fur - Farm raised long haired cats can be shaved and their fur used as a alternative to synthetic fibers in quilts and pillows.
2 - Biofuel made from the leftovers of liposuction. I know that this has been done on a small scale, but this could give new meaning to the phrase "fat farm". And we have a lot of big eaters in the south. Also, the leftovers could be used as industrial grease.
3 - Botox injections for smiling dogs. I just hate it when they smile at me. Who knows what they are REALLY thinking? Sure their lips may sag a bit, but so what.
4 - Interest bearing accounts at sperm banks. OK, I haven't worked out all the details yet. Some type of "certificate of deposit" I'm thinking.

Feel free to refine and market these as you see fit.

[sdenney]

Oh - and Bill is of course perfectly right about books charging different prices in different places. Market segmentation and price discrimination is one of the most important ideas in marketing. What on earth makes anyone think that only one price should be charged for a product? I'm not going to go into it now, but there's a huge amount of social good that comes from price discrimination. If book manufacturers were forced to see al one price they wouldn't drop to $40, they'd only cater to the high price segment at $100, and many third world students would be less educated. And why do you think you're osed money for your used book? The value is in your reading it - and it's used! So you've taken the intellectual content. There's a paper by a famous economist at yale on textbook versions to exactly this point, demonstrating that frequent updates on textbooks (thereby killing the old textbook's 2nd hand market value) helps support the intellectual content of that book. Look up Judy Chevalier for more.

The practice of market segmentation in textbooks is now ILLEGAL by order of SCOTUS!! Look it up. As for myself, I no longer get my textbooks at any of the local bookstores. Amazon and other online retailers offer much better deals. As for Book-Buyback... every bookstore advertises like crazy for it, some year-round. My expectation is that they practice what they preach. At this point, my textbooks are for my professional classes and I will most likely be keeping all of them.

[aainslie]

Read the case more carefully.

It's not illegal to price discriminate on foreign editions. But it's also not illegal to reimport foreign editions. Two different things.

The diecision makes sense. It's up to marketers to create barriers between segments, not governments.

Put simply - it's NOT right to force publishers to publish at one price everywhere. But it's also NOT right to tell US Universities that they may not buy books in other countries.

It was a nice decision upholding free markets.

It's an unfortunate and unexpected consequence of this that those foreign editions may, depending on the distribution of demand, go up in price.

Book buybacks are, IMHO, immoral. however that's a whole other discussion. Look up the Chevalier paper. The publishers use versioning of textbooks to protect intellectual capital. It's sort of a side issue in the paper but there's some interesting learning from it. Here's a write-up:

http://www.nber.org/digest/feb06/w11421.html

Now, back to cave diving...

[rjack]

A teaser - the new deepest point in Ginnie is 150 feet deep!!!

Wow you really went digging! Congradulations and yes I am from the FBI lol

[aainslie]

Wow you really went digging! Congradulations and yes I am from the FBI lol

Seriously, it was pretty amazing finding myself at that depth. My computer was going crazy, since my PO2 was, err..., high.