Burn CD's for a Classmate????

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v-tach said:
I think you did the right thing by not burning the CD. It would be, as you say, "ripping off the company" and that's not right.
--v-tach
Not right??? Yeah, because the companies aren't ripping all of us off or anything - new editions of $80+ books every other year with no real changes (ooh, Fig 15.73 is IN COLOR! We retitled Chapter 43!) that are still required by the professors who write the books and make royalties every time a student is required to buy the new edition for the class. Complete crap. I think the ethical thing to do in the case is to burn the damn CD so the companies who are soaking us don't make the money off of selling it...
 
BeatArmy said:
Scott-

Maybe you are the perfect person to resolve the licensing question.
What are the legalities when a CD is sold with a textbook?
Can the software license be sold along with the book? Is it automatically transferred with the book? Would it have made a difference if the person who sold it had left the CD inside the cover?
Buying a book used isn't a copyright infringement, and the CD's often contain the same info as in the book, so the person has paid for the copyrighted material.
A quick check of the three textbooks I have on hand. Two contain no licensing information at all. The other says that the license is transferrable, but doesn't specify if the actual CD has to be transferred.
My curiosity has been piqued by this thread. You gotta have some legal gurus around LWW who can answer.

When you purchase a book with a CD, you are entitled to use the content on the CD, give the CD to someone else but you can't copy the CD or network it unless you have purchased a network license.
 
I'd say the 900% mark-up we pay for text books gives us permission to do whatever the hell we want with the useless CD they include.
 
indo said:
I'd say the 900% mark-up we pay for text books gives us permission to do whatever the hell we want with the useless CD they include.

That's inaccurate. The margin of profit from these books is not that high after all the costs are factored in.

To everyone: I came up with the Simbryo idea back in 2001 and worked really hard (along with my brother) to create it. We don't make that much from it, but do enjoy the fact that students seem to like it. The best feeling is to hear that others are benefiting from your work. When you steal from the "big company" by passing around burned CDs you are also stealing work from your cohorts like me. We're all professionals in this field whether students or physicians and I think it's important to behave this way. I have downloaded a few songs for free from the internet, so I am not one to judge, but I will say that I don't feel great about having done so. I no longer do this, although I can understand why people do it.

I'm not saying you should never help out friends, but I do think you should be thinking about your actions carefully. Acting like the physician you know you'll become will help you get there faster 🙂
 
pheck said:
That's inaccurate. The margin of profit from these books is not that high after all the costs are factored in.
QUOTE]


Why are textbooks sold at half the US price in France and the UK?
 
elin said:
pheck said:
That's inaccurate. The margin of profit from these books is not that high after all the costs are factored in.
QUOTE]


Why are textbooks sold at half the US price in France and the UK?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that the market won't support the US prices over there. My guess would be that the cost of living plays a big role. You have to pay the truck delivery person $10/hr, storage $5000/month to warehouse the books, distributor $50,000 in the US vs. $2/hr, $1000, and $10,000 respectively in Asia (all made up numbers).
 
elin said:
Why are textbooks sold at half the US price in France and the UK?

SUBSIDY!
The governments of France/UK and any other country with 'cheap books' subsidize textbooks.
Don't blame the publisher or the free market economy-everyone wants to make a buck.
Petition your Congressman/Representative to push a bill for text book subsidies for medical students.
:meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie:
 
indo said:
I'd say the 900% mark-up we pay for text books gives us permission to do whatever the hell we want with the useless CD they include.

When you get pissed about the high prices at the gas pump do you go into the food mart and steal junk food and soft drinks to make yourself feel better? That's simply the logical extension of the type of reasoning that you're using here.

If you don't like the way the laws are written, get involved and make some changes. I am getting really sick of young idiots in this country with a sense of entitlement and a complete unwillingness to examine the potential consequences of their actions. The ultimate cost of educational software piracy will be paid by other students years from now. But hey, what do you care- you got it for free now, right?
 
Scott_L said:
When you purchase a book with a CD, you are entitled to use the content on the CD, give the CD to someone else but you can't copy the CD or network it unless you have purchased a network license.

That makes sense, i guess i just see it like this...

What if he bought the book used and there were a couple pages torn out. I don't see why it would be illegal to copy the missing pages from someone else who has the book. Maybe it is illegal, but that seems silly.
I think the missing CD is a very similar situation. The law may disagree.
 
BeatArmy said:
That makes sense, i guess i just see it like this...

What if he bought the book used and there were a couple pages torn out. I don't see why it would be illegal to copy the missing pages from someone else who has the book. Maybe it is illegal, but that seems silly.
I think the missing CD is a very similar situation. The law may disagree.

In that case he bought a defective product. He most likely has a right to get it replaced anyway, but copying the missing pages is more like "fixing" the book than copying and distributing it.
 
omarsaleh66 said:
Hey dude, Burn him the cd. I come to u from the year 2034. The robots are fighting the humans. If u dont burn that ho the cd, then he will not ace Anatomy and go into Family Practice and not be the father of John Conner.

Hope that helps

Omar
Ha ha.... a bitter taste of things to come!!!
 
lilmo said:
are the cd's actually that valuable and helpful? the only cd that i've ever used that came with a book is Langman's Medical Embryology--and that's a freakin awesome cd. i would recommend it to anyone.

So what exactly is on that cd? Do they by any chance have the entire sequence of development animated in one go that moves slow enough to observe all the details? If so then I am highly tempted because the animations I have seen on the web either go too fast or are too short to be useful.

To the OP, realistically I don't even think it would have been pirating the cd. He owns the book, it should have come with a copy of the multimedia orriginally provided. Plus I agree with lilmo, most cd's are absolutely worthless and so usually nobody cares if they are ever "pirated" or not. I think you should have helped him out. Perhaps you could loan him your cd for a day, what he does with it is his problem not yours. This has the added benifit of saving you the dime it would have cost you to burn the cd for him.
 
rgporter said:
So what exactly is on that cd? Do they by any chance have the entire sequence of development animated in one go that moves slow enough to observe all the details? If so then I am highly tempted because the animations I have seen on the web either go too fast or are too short to be useful.

You can be the judge. Here is a sample animation (part of the early development module). Hope it is useful.

http://simbryo.stanford.edu/previewearly.html
 
By FAR my favorite part of this thread is the fact that the publisher guy misspelled 'copyright.' Instant classic. Now, if he will only reveal his secret identity as Lars Ulrich...(kidding)

Here's a thought: if you are truly altruistic, you will let him borrow the CD for a few days with the understanding that he will give it back when you ask for it. If he chooses to burn the CD during that time than any moral wrongdoing is purely on him.

I'm going to suggest incorporating this problem into a PBL curriculum.
 
c'mon, get over it. you paid the money for the book. who cares if he uses your cd.
 
chameleonknight said:
By FAR my favorite part of this thread is the fact that the publisher guy misspelled 'copyright.' Instant classic.
:laugh: Yeah I picked that up too but didnt have the heart to say it.
:meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie: :meanie:
There is a common problem with med students I have seen.............
many of them get all of these books and CDs and then DONT have time to even use them!!!!
A reversion to some primitive rodent-like hording behaviour?
 
modemduck said:
Btw, I like the name Pooh Chong... that is really catchy!


Thanks! I won't bore you with the story...or embarass myself more like it.

If the book comes with a CD in the first place, then any used copy of the book should come with it as well. Thus the dude could have a legal right to own a copy of the CD. If it's an optional CD, then that would not be the case. That's my thought.

If the dude is a jerk, then do anything nice for him. If he only wants to borrow it, and doesn't want a copied version of it...then I say don't give it to him. That alone is sketchy enough I woudl doubt I would ever get the CD back.
 
It's a cd... just burn it for him for goodness sakes.
 
Hey Pheck, that's awesome that you developed the Symbrio CD. I really like it alot and my professor really stresses that we work closely with it - he loves it!

Well, I am sort of disappointed in my fellow SDNers on this topic. I know we're all different in where we come from, our backgrounds and ages, etc, but I really still feel pretty strongly on this issue. I guess the original concerns I had were that if you are going to try and save some $$ by buying a second hand copy of a required textbook, and then you don't get the cd that comes with it - who's fault is that? I say, just suck it up and buy the original and then be done with it. A friend bought the second hand copy, got no cd and then just caved and bought the original so she could have what she needed for the course. It's a real drag to have to run around and hope that someone will do you this big favor. Frankly, I wouldn't bother.

Also, on a more deeper level I thought it said something about the person that they were more inclined to assume that they could get other people to 'help them out'. Is this a shortcut or 'you do it for me' sort of mentality? We are all grown ups here and it is part of being an adult that we be responsible for our actions. That means, if you don't have you own cd, you might be left out in the cold because no might want to 'help you out.'

Like someone mentioned above, I was really curious about what you guys (who are really REALLY important to me, and I am really being honest here) would think of this. It's ok, I guess we're all of differing opinions. I used to be a bit of a delinquent when I was a teenager, and so I know what it's like to be a scammer. Today, I don't want to be like that and so I feel uncomfortable even taking a pen from work. But that's just me. It's been interesting to hear all our opinions.

Now, I gotta study !! 😱
 
toofache32 said:
Burn it.

I actually don't see the ethical issue here. You guys obviously let the media brainwash you when they use terminology like "pirating." I have several thousand MP3's on my computer. I only downloaded them because they were free...many of them I haven't even listened to. If I had to pay, I would have just said forget it and done without them. Therefore, the record company never would have gotten money from me to begin with. They cannot claim "lost profits" on profits they never had and never would have had.

What about people who sit in my room and listen to music I bought. They didn't pay for it, but I did. What if we listen to it on their stereo? What if I forget and leave it in their stereo? Are they allowed to listen while I am gone?

Anyone ever pick up a newspaper someone left in a chair in an airport or restaurant? Did you read it even though you didn't throw another 50 cents into a machine?

Anyone have thoughts on this?
 
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