HDCP break and DMCA

[Tim May]

On Sunday, November 25, 2001, at 01:09 PM, Eric Cordian wrote:
> Why don't people copy paperback books?  Because it is cheaper to buy 
> them.
> Not because the paperback book copyright police threaten you with life 
> in
> prison.
>

Why don't people copy hardback books?

Answer: they do! Go to any large copying center near a university and 
look for "professor packs" or "HistCon 101 Course Materials" consisting 
of copied material out of various textbooks, hard and soft. The deal is 
that the student takes the professor pack over to a copy machine and 
runs off a copy of each of the, for example, 400 pages. The student pays 
$20 or so and saves himself having to buy 10 books to read one or two 
chapters or sections out of each. The students are happy, the copy shop 
is happy, the professor is happy, and only the publishers and authors 
are unhappy.

This was very common here in Santa Cruz, as recently as several years 
ago when I was doing a lot of copying of my own papers.

There were signs up about not violating copyright law, but these 
professor packs were in clear violation.

(Yeah, someone may say "Maybe the professors made an arrangement with 
the publishers and authors." I give this a vanishingly small chance of 
being the case in more than 2% of all such "course materials" packs.)

I've heard that national chains, like Kinko's, are less involved in this 
trade. Deeper pockets, easier to threaten.

(It used to be common at, ironically, the very first Kinko's, in Isla 
Vista, CA. The year I arrived, ironically.)

As for paperback books being cheaper to copy, I've copied several 
paperbound books that "cost too much."



--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.