As a student, I spent a lot of money on Textbook everything semester, a book cost me about $200 dollars.I was looking for a cheaper way to cut off my spend on textbook. Then I find out that different store has different price, the school bookstore which is more expensive than off-campus bookstore in my second semester. Somehow, I can get used book online with half price of bookstore where likes Amazon, Ebay. That is very excited when you got a book only half price than others. But in a lot of situation, textbook online are very expensive too. So there is other way: rent textbook. I usually rent book through www.chegg.com, you pay the rent fee for textbook during the time period,usually a semester, you need to return the book before the date due, otherwise, you need to pay extra fee. There is one more way to rent textbook which is e-book, you can view the textbook online which you paid. You log on your account and only can review the e-book online, you can not do copy and paste. It's cheaper than rent textbook, but you need to have internet service.
I did several ways above for saving textbook money until I get free e-book from my friend. She bought Finance text e-book copy from online which cost her $20 dollar. That is a huge saving! The hard copy will cost $200 dollar! She was doubt the seller about the book, after she got the PDF file from seller, she sent it to me. I was very excited about the saving! I have no idea it would be illegal! Because the seller is selling. But from the ethics side, I was thinking about the piracy problem. As I know, it should not be right!!
To talk about ethic is not a easy task. Do I need to buy a book by myself or get the free e-book from others? Be honestly, I will definitly pay for testbook if it costs me $20 dollars, but if it will costs me $200 dollars, that a lot to me! I would get the free file from my friend. I believe that if one day $200 is a piece of cake, I will make the right decision again. But who else will not? Is it a question of the ethics of piracy?
by wenyi
I agree with your statement, "ethic is not an easy task". However, most books are crazy expensive, and if I had the option to buy copies or an e-book I probably would do it. For instance, back in my country it is a very common practice for students to buy the photocopies of the book or only the copies one is required to read instead of buying an original edition. Also, stores around campus offer competitive prices to students, so they have the option to choose the most convenient for them. Obviously as students we don't consider this practice to be piracy nonetheless unethical.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if other universities around the world have the same practice.
Like you said we are student! compare to the crazy expensive, student would like to choose convenient and cheaper way to get the textbook. We're under the ethic of piracy, not because we dont want to, just because we're not easy to.
Deletewenyi chen