Coming to campus: E-books with expiration dates

gsandler writes “Here
is a News.com story about how Princeton
University and nine other colleges are offering students bargain textbook downloads that expire after five months.
"Alongside the new and used versions of Dante’s “Inferno” and “Essentials of Psychology” will be little cards offering 33 percent off if students decide to download a digital version of a text instead of buying a hard copy.
That’s not a bad deal for a cash-strapped student facing book bills in the hundreds of dollars. But there are trade-offs. The new digital textbook program imposes strict guidelines on how the books can be used, including locking the downloaded books to a single computer and setting a five-month expiration date, after which the book can’t be read.”

August 10, 2005 by Uncategorized 2

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2 Responses

  1. Darla says:
    August 10, 2005 at 11:13 pm

    I’d rather buy the hard copy…
    If you are not going to be able to use it after 5 months, might as well buy the hard copy and resell it. That way you can use it in the dark with a flashlight when the power goes out in the dormitory…

    I’m selling a $50 text book on Ebay right now. Its bid up to over $25 and still has 4 days left on the auction. Meanwhile, the Fall Semester is starting soon…

    Reply
  2. Porch Geese says:
    August 11, 2005 at 5:09 pm

    Re:I’d rather buy the hard copy…
    The best way to make this effective is to sell the ebook for substantially LESS than the difference between the new price and the resale value of a print version of the same book.

    An $80 Computer Science textbook that I can sell back to the bookstore for $55, or to another student for $65, is worth around $20 to me. That’s how much I’ll effectively spend on it, in the end. I wouldn’t consider an ebook as an worthy substitute, especially one that expires unless it cost less than $10, in that case.

    Reply

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