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Re: Today's jaw dropper



Let me play a small devil's advocate.

*I reckon that students pay for all these promotional copies. It
is only fair that they get them. I certainly have never sold them
to the vultures who come seeking to buy them.

I'm as annoyed as anybody by the book buyers and refuse to sell any of my
desk copies to them.

Amen. I don't understand why this is not illegal.

My guess its no more illegal than selling anything at a yard sell. The book
became my property when it was given to me, so I have a right to sell it
off.

Or is it? Whenever
one of these sleazoids swings by, I make a point of loudly explaining to
any nearby student the central role of "this guy" in driving up their
textbook prices.

I'm not sure its totally fair to think of them as sleazoids (although I
confess I sometimes do). To some extent this is recycling and isn't any
more sleazy than someone coming in asking for your empy coke cans. Also,
while they do drive up the price of texts when looked at from one
perspective, from another perspective they help the used book market which
costs less for students. Actually I doubt they affect the book prices much
at all, because at doubt the number of current edition books that they
obtain from getting desk copies from professors amounts to a more than
neglible amount of the used books that are for sale, most of which come from
students selling their books back to the U. bookstore or elsewhere.

Its really professors that demand free deskcopies, before choosing a book,
that is the driving force of that part of the book market. BTW another
confession, I'm one of those type of professors.

Joel Rauber