Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Article: New Web Site Unabashedly Trades Free Digital Copies of Pirated Textbooks

The Sept. 2, 2011 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (p. A17) contains this article on textbook piracy. According the author, the created of this new web site - LibraryPirate - hopes "that a groundswell of textbook piracy would force publishers to bring down the prices of e-textbooks, which he sees as unfairly high."  What I find amazing is that LibraryPirate is being hosted in the Ukraine where it reportedly does not violate copyright law. 

The good news about worldwide access is that it is worldwide (universal access).  The bad news is that disparities in the law can be exploited.

The article is in the print edition of The Chronicle but does not appear on the free section of its web site.

No comments: