international textbooks

Posted by ryan at 10:17 PM in education . | 3 Comments

As Barnes & Noble continues to buy out independent college bookstores it seems as if the price of textbooks has skyrocketed past unaffordable straight to ludicrous. Faced with a $143 list price for one of my books I decided to try out the darkside of textbooks this semester: international textbooks. For the very same text, the international version sells for about $36.

If you have ever seen an international text, there are labels prohibiting the sale of the text in the United States. I was curious how a text containing verbatim contents, legally printed and distributed overseas, was illegal stateside. Fortunately, someone else asked Google Answers first.

Therefore, the current state of US law is that international versions of textbooks that are lawfully manufactured under the authorization of the copyright holder can be legally imported by a party that has acquired them outside of the US, for subsequent resale within the US. While the copyright holder can require that their license holders (the international printers) do not themselves ship manufactured copies directly for public distribution in the US without prior consent, the copyright holder cannot prevent a party from purchasing lawfully manufactured copies outside the US, and importing them into the US for sale or otherwise disposal.

It almost goes without saying therefore that the US publishers are actively lobbying for changes to the law to prevent this.