Spinning Yarns

The first day of classes that Fall was a warm, exciting day. The air was clear and sweet and September-crisp, but the sunshine was still as warm as August, and the sky was dotted with white clouds. Alice unpacked her suitcase and straightened up a few things around her room, then locked her door and headed out into the breezy mid-morning to purchase her textbooks. She was pleased to be back on campus, and was looking forward to her first class that afternoon.

As usual, the bookstore was mobbed. Alice threaded her way slowly through the jostling crowd and located the required textbooks for her courses that term—a capacious tome on thermodynamics, two fat bricks comprising the latest annotated edition of “The Iliad” (in Greek), a couple of puce coloured lint-bound course readers in postmodern literary criticism, and a deceptively slim volume entitled “Analytical Algebraic Topology,” whose price might have suggested the pages were printed on gold foil. Fortunately, this year the publishers had made “low-cost” editions of their books available for almost a third less, and budget-minded Alice was quick to select the less-expensive titles.

In the checkout line, she bumped into her friend Bob and his girlfriend Carol, who were also purchasing some of the same books,* but she noticed that Bob and Carol had selected the full-price editions. When she helpfully pointed out the more economical editions, Bob shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said. “My brother Dave got those editions at Princeton last term, and he had no end of trouble with them. You might want to avoid them yourself.” But Alice shook her head, “No, I don’t think so. I can’t imagine any advantage the standard editions have that could justify them being half again the price of these cheap ones.” Bob nodded and shrugged. “Fair enough,” he said, “I just thought I’d mention it.”

The first few weeks of the term flew by quickly, and Alice quickly became deeply engrossed in her coursework; everything was going well, and she’d had no troubles with her cut-rate textbooks.

One evening, Alice was sitting at a table in one of the library’s beautiful old wood-panelled study rooms, preparing for a midterm examination, when she got the strange feeling someone was watching her. She looked up from her books, squinting to let her eyes adjust to the darkness outside the warm yellow light from the desk lamp. There was a man standing beside her, a small weaselly man in a charcoal grey pinstripe suit and black loafers. He adjusted his glasses nervously, and looked at Alice.

“Can I help you?” she asked impatiently.

“Um, yes,” he said, his voice thin and slightly obsequious. “You are Miss Alice Spiegel, are you not?” He looked down at a sheet of paper he was carrying in his left hand, as if he was checking his notes.

“That depends who’s asking,” she said.

He cleared his throat softly. “My name is Everard Page,” he said, “and I represent the Publications Industry Media Production group, the organization responsible for the publication and distribution of the low-cost academic textbook series I believe you are using.” He nodded in the direction of Alice’s textbooks, which lay open on the table amid notebooks and sheets of scratch-work. Alice looked at him somewhat incredulously until he fumbled out a brightly laminated ID card and held it out to her. She didn’t take it, or even look closely at it, so eventually he put it away and continued.

“At any rate, the Allison-Eastley Publishing Company, who printed and delivered the textbooks you are currently using, has issued a recall on all of the books in their special low-cost Student Editions. The recall is effective immediately, and I am empowered to collect all outstanding copies of the Student Edition textbooks present on campus.” He looked meaningfully at Alice’s books.

“You have got to be kidding me,” said Alice, utterly incredulous. “Do you just expect me to hand over my books to you? I mean, as if that weren’t a preposterous notion in the first place, I have exams tomorrow morning. There is no way in hell I’m giving you the books I need to study from.”

Page cleared his throat uncomfortably, “I’m afraid, Miss Spiegel, that you do not have any choice in the matter. The legal terms under which you purchased a license to use our copyrighted materials explicitly require that you surrender the books upon demand to ‘any duly appointed agent of the Publications Industry Media Production group,’ which role I presently fulfil.” He handed her a crisp sheet of paper containing the text of a license agreement, and began to gather up her books.

Alice was dumbfounded, but the terms of the license were clear and explicit in the terms Page had spelled out. She gritted her teeth, and collected her notebooks and papers together. “When will I be receiving replacements for these?” she asked.

Page paused and raised one eyebrow. “Replacements?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “If you are recalling these books, surely you will be replacing them with something else I can use for my classes. That’s the way a recall works, is it not?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Page with a note of regret. “You may, at your option, send your purchase receipt to the Media Production group’s main office to receive a pro rata refund on the remaining value of your licenses, but the textbooks themselves will not be replaced.” He slipped the textbooks into a heavy black case and closed the lid. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience this might cause you, Miss Spiegel, but those are the terms of the license.” He snapped the buckles shut and turned to leave. “Have a good evening, Miss Spiegel.”

Alice seethed as he departed, then stormed downstairs to the Reserve Desk to borrow copies of her textbooks for the night. She was dismayed to learn that the library’s copies of the texts had also been recalled, and that the library did not have any of the standard full-price editions in their collection at all. Eventually, she was able to borrow a copy from Bob, who was up late in the local coffee shop, sipping mocha latte and reading a book for his class on the philosophy of law.

“Where do they get off doing this?” she asked. “I bought those books fair and square; since when can they just take away something I bought and paid for?”

“Unfortunately, you didn’t buy the books,” said Bob. “You only bought a license to use the books—which is why it cost so much less than the full-price editions you usually see on the shelves. Under the statutes concerning copyright, the copyright holder has the right to determine the terms under which anybody may use their copyrighted materials, and in this case, that means they can cut off your access to these particular texts.” He sighed, and took another sip of his coffee. “It’s not a very good situation, I’m afraid. The idea of copyright was to permit authors to make a living off their creative efforts—it was supposed to provided a limited protection from the natural order of things, where anybody can copy anything they can get their hands on. But nowadays, big publishers see it as a kind of entitlement to rape the consumer, and to hell with the authors.”

Alice grumbled into her glass mug of raspberry tea. “But I wasn’t making copies,” she said, “I was just reading the textbooks. How can they prevent me from doing that? And during exam week, no less!”

Bob shrugged, “The laws give them a lot of rights, and they’re getting stronger all the time. There’s been a lot of push by the big players in the music and film industries to strengthen the legal protections on copyrighted material. You know, like how they keep extending the copyright term everytime Mickey Mouse is about to go into the public domain. It’s a big political farce. The public gets screwed, but as long as they make money, the companies will keep giving perks to lobbyists and members of Congress to get what they want.” He looked at Alice’s long face. “Come on, it’s not so bad,” he said. “You can use my copies for now, and tomorrow you can write a letter to your Senator and complain about it. Meanwhile, let me buy you a blackberry scone.” He waved for the barista.

Alice sighed, and nodded. “Yeah, I suppose it could be worse,” she said. “I mean, at least they don’t make us use electronic textbooks or something.” She smiled wryly, “It would be pretty bad if you lost your place everytime the power went out.”

* Alice and Bob dated during their sophomore Cryptography course, but the secrecy eventually eroded their relationship, and they broke up. Alice is currently seeing a man named Trent, whom she finds very trustworthy.

Filed by Michael at 17:08 under Academic, Philosophical, Story
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