E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
In both cases you have doctors (Ph.D.'s or M.D.'s) prescribing products. In neither case does the doctor pay for the product prescribed - in many cases, he or she doesn't even know what it costs. And the clincher is that in both cases, the manufacturers sell the same product at substantially reduced prices abroad.
I've received a blizzard of supportive email (even with regard to my suggestion that textbooks be included as part of tuition). But one of the most interesting comments suggested that school licensing of textbooks in inevitable because of the easy of "ripping textbooks" -- scanning textbooks into pdf format and posting them on napster sharing services. A truly scary prospect that publishers might respond to by selling per student licenses to schools.
By the way, I predict that a bunch of professors around the country who assign their books to their class are about to be asked "why don't you give us the Ayres rebate?" A milder question might be "Professor, do you know how much our text book cost (and are there any cheaper equivalent books)?" Posted
1:47 PM
by Ian Ayres [link]
Comments:
one of my grad students recently told me that econometric analysis, (by william h greene), which is probably the most frequently prescribed phd econometrics book and goes for >$100 i think, can be gotten for $10 in paperback at www.firstandsecond.com. this site is located in india and will ship.
it's a great deal.....if i didn't have a free desk copy, i'd buy one :-)
This is somewhat off-topic, but if you want to be outraged about the K-12 textbook market, try this article: http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1195&issue=nov_04
That market seems to have a very different set of problems. Perhaps care should be taken in proscribing the K-12-style solution for overpriced college textbooks.