Oh, please. You’ll have to do better than that
September 25th 2007 19:17
A Harvard student was asked to leave the Harvard Co-op Bookstore, because he was taking down notes of the ISBNs and the prices of books he required for his course.
The Harvard Coop (as it seems to be generally known) claimed the ISBNs were intellectual property, and that the student was committing a form of theft.
ISBN means International Standard Book Number.
Apart from the sheer mean-spiritedness of the request, ISBNs aren’t part of a book’s created material, which is copyright. They’re something a publisher includes merely as a way of identifying one particular title over another – in an effort to make it easier to sift amongst the millions of books published each year. Each ISBN is unique. (Up until recently an ISBN consisted of ten numbers; now it’s up to thirteen, which presumably says something about the state of publishing.)
Somehow or other the Coop claimed that the ISBNs were their intellectual property. This is a strangely misguided view. Even if they had published the books, the ISBN is no one’s property. It’s an agreed service between publishers and the International ISBN agency that provides the ISBN process.
It seems the issue may be more one of financial gain, rather than loss of intellectual property. Like many University bookstores, the Coop has a longstanding link with Harvard, supplying textbooks for the courses, and supplying them at prices that aren’t necessarily in the students’ favour. With the students being able to access the same books online, and purchase them often at better prices, it’s not surprising that the Coop is a little miffed. You’d think though that a University bookshop would get its facts right before making a fool of itself in this way.
Footnote: SBNs were introduced by the English book chain, W H Smith, back in 1966 (so you won’t see an ISBN on any book published before that date.) ISBNs came into existence later, and each country has its own prefix number.
The Harvard Coop (as it seems to be generally known) claimed the ISBNs were intellectual property, and that the student was committing a form of theft.
ISBN means International Standard Book Number.
Apart from the sheer mean-spiritedness of the request, ISBNs aren’t part of a book’s created material, which is copyright. They’re something a publisher includes merely as a way of identifying one particular title over another – in an effort to make it easier to sift amongst the millions of books published each year. Each ISBN is unique. (Up until recently an ISBN consisted of ten numbers; now it’s up to thirteen, which presumably says something about the state of publishing.)
Somehow or other the Coop claimed that the ISBNs were their intellectual property. This is a strangely misguided view. Even if they had published the books, the ISBN is no one’s property. It’s an agreed service between publishers and the International ISBN agency that provides the ISBN process.
It seems the issue may be more one of financial gain, rather than loss of intellectual property. Like many University bookstores, the Coop has a longstanding link with Harvard, supplying textbooks for the courses, and supplying them at prices that aren’t necessarily in the students’ favour. With the students being able to access the same books online, and purchase them often at better prices, it’s not surprising that the Coop is a little miffed. You’d think though that a University bookshop would get its facts right before making a fool of itself in this way.
Footnote: SBNs were introduced by the English book chain, W H Smith, back in 1966 (so you won’t see an ISBN on any book published before that date.) ISBNs came into existence later, and each country has its own prefix number.
| 43 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
