[HN Gopher] GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is take...
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GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down
Author : altro
Score : 275 points
Date : 2021-05-01 09:15 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| DerNuntius wrote:
| Here is the counternotice:
| https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...
| mirthflat83 wrote:
| What a shitshow
| st_goliath wrote:
| When I was an undergrad student, we had an algorithms and data
| structures lecture based on the Java version of the book. We also
| got an archive with the samples to work with that was IIRC GPL
| licensed.
|
| Did this repo contain the code or the entire book as well?
|
| In the former case, if I remember correctly, this DMCA claim
| would clearly be bogus. Yet another case where sending out DMCA
| claims having penalties for the sender if they are fraudulent,
| but putting a burden on the recipient who might suffer if they
| don't immediately act.
| bo1024 wrote:
| So is whoever filed the notice going down for perjury?
| orsenthil wrote:
| Is there a clone of these not in github? Please share it so that
| we can keep them in a different repositories.
|
| Risky to keep these exclusively in Github.
| avipars wrote:
| Wayback machine has a version
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20201016112929/https://github.com...
| emayljames wrote:
| source folder is not backed up
| neatze wrote:
| I don't understand this; does DMCA imply no one can use
| algorithms in a book within open source projects ?
| meepmorp wrote:
| The book has code samples, and this repository is where they
| are hosted.
| projectileboy wrote:
| The story I don't see being discussed is that Github is now
| engaged in the same kind of rotten behavior as YouTube.
| IshKebab wrote:
| GitHub are legally required to do this.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| No, they aren't. If there is no merit to a copyright claim,
| there is no vicarious liability for Github to be insulated
| from by the DMCA safe harbor.
|
| It's cheaper and less risky not to evaluate the merits of
| DMCA notices and just to blindly execute them, but it is
| erroneous to say that thet are legally required to act in
| that manner.
| mon77 wrote:
| Yes, they are, and yes, there is. The claiming and
| counterclaiming process is independent of the merit of
| copyright under DMCA. Budget and risk are not part of the
| equation. Evaluating copyright applicability cannot be part
| of the equation; it's not your content. The law specifies
| almost exactly what you must do with some vague concepts
| for interpretation (like expedient). If you don't do those
| things even on an obviously bogus complaint that is
| otherwise properly formed, you stop having safe harbor,
| because those disputes are intended by the law to be
| handled in court and not your legal department. It's
| genuinely not complicated (read OCILLA) and you should be
| annoyed with the law for this situation, not its subjects.
|
| You are sharing an opinion disguised as fact. It's a wrong
| one, but I get why you'd conclude it.
|
| Source: Write DMCA policy for UGC.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The claiming and counterclaiming process is independent
| of the merit of copyright under DMCA.
|
| The DMCA process isn't a mandatory process, it is a
| process to receive safe harbor from whatever liability
| would otherwise exist. If there would be no liability
| independent of the DMCA safe harbor, there is no mandate
| to follow the safe harbor process.
|
| (If you disagree with this, here's what you need to do,
| identify--with citation to supporting law--the available
| legal remedy that can be imposed on a provider who
| declines to adhere to the DMCA safe harbor process where
| there is no underlying copyright liability.)
|
| Service providers _make a choice_ to follow the notice
| process blindly as a risk management measure, not because
| it is legally required to do so.
|
| (Which is also why the counternotice process is often
| less fully implemented, or why, e.g., Youtube has its own
| hyper-aggressive policy for certain content that goes
| beyond the DMCA process and lacks counternotice
| opportunity--the counternotice process is just as much
| part of the DMCA process, but because providers are able
| to structure their relationship with users in a way which
| avoids having any liability for takedowns which would
| benefit from a safe harbor, they can safely ignore that
| process.)
|
| Source: the actual text of the DMCA safe harbor
| provision, and the reason it is called a "safe harbor".
|
| > You are sharing an opinion disguised as fact
|
| No, you are engaging in standard industry blameshifting
| by misrepresenting risk management strategy adopted
| responding to incentives created by a law with an actual
| legal mandate.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| If a person who
|
| > Write[s] DMCA policy for UGC
|
| Is purposefully trying to confuse your argument, or worse
| yet, doesn't know any of it, that may be part of the
| problem
| kelnos wrote:
| > _If there would be no liability independent of the DMCA
| safe harbor, there is no mandate to follow the safe
| harbor process._
|
| The problem is that GitHub doesn't get to decide that. If
| they give up their option for safe harbor by not
| following the DMCA takedown process, the company claiming
| copyright can sue them. Even if they don't win, defending
| these things costs time and money.
|
| I don't blame GitHub for just not wanting to deal with
| all that. You seem to disagree, and believe that GH
| should stand up and open themselves to legal liability
| for every random user on their site, which I don't think
| is practical or reasonable to expect of a for-profit
| corporation.
|
| The remedy for this is simple: we need to stop relying on
| centralized solutions for things like this. There are a
| variety of options for this: Tor hidden services, IPFS,
| hosting outside the copyright holder's jurisdiction, etc.
| None of them are perfect, but relying on a for-profit
| corporation to host your even-remotely-legally-
| questionable material, you're setting yourself up to
| fail.
| I_Byte wrote:
| I recommended checking out Tom Scott's video on DMCA (0). It's
| 40 minutes long and rather YouTube centric however it paints a
| very clear picture as to why these companies are engaging in a
| seemingly broken practice. It's not because they want to, it's
| because they are legally required to do so.
|
| (0) - https://youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
| kelnos wrote:
| YouTube goes very much above and beyond what the DMCA
| requires, and favors the interests of the big corporate
| copyright holders over smaller creators.
|
| I imagine they do this because of their settlement with
| Viacom[0] where they likely bent over backwards to avoid
| further appeals and lawsuits. Viacom likely said "regardless
| of how this goes, we and other copyright holders will sue
| YouTube off the internet unless you build a system that
| proactively takes down everything even remotely potentially
| infringing without us having to notify you of anything". And
| Google caved.
|
| Don't get me wrong, the DMCA is still overall a bad law
| (though, to be honest, I think the copyright takedown process
| is the least bad part of it), but Google is not doing what
| they do because of the DMCA.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v
| ._Y.... -- notably, no money changed hands as a part of the
| settlement, but other terms were not disclosed.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| The DMCA was written by lawyers for lawyers.
|
| And you know who can afford lawyers? Big corporate
| copyright holders.
| rurban wrote:
| It's the Sedgewick/Wayne Algorithms 4 in Java part. The author
| had an arrangement with the Pearson editor to release the
| accompanying code for the Java update under the GPL, but
| apparently someone else at Pearson's had a different idea. Let's
| see if he has it in writing.
| hintymad wrote:
| Speaking of Robert Sedgewick, I deeply enjoyed his course
| Analysis of Algorithms, as Sedgewick beautifully showed the power
| of generating functions. Generating functions, or analytical
| combinatorics in general, make it order-of-magnitude easier to
| analyze algorithm complexities compared to what we learn in an
| introductory course. It's mind boggling to experience how higher-
| level constructs of math reveal simplicity and deep insights.
| dogman144 wrote:
| It's a great algo book. I learned a ton of math-oriented CS
| thinking and application without having a particularly strong
| math background.
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| That seems odd, given that Kevin Wayne is co-author of the 4th
| edition of "Algorithms".
| inetsee wrote:
| Kevin Wayne is one of the co-authors of the book, but the
| copyright listing is "Copyright 2011 Pearson Education, Inc."
| and there does not appear to be anything in the book that says
| that the code is GPL licensed.
|
| Presumably Kevin Wayne was given the right to license the code
| as GPL, but that fact didn't get included in the text of the
| book, and the f*cking, stupid copyright bot Pearson uses didn't
| get the memo.
| csunbird wrote:
| There is a counter notice from him (I think) here: https://gi
| thub.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| What seems odd is that the code is freely licenced to the
| public, no matter who wrote it.
|
| These DMCA requests are created and acted upon without the
| slightest checking, with no penalty.
|
| There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop this
| nonsense.
| qayxc wrote:
| > There should be some sort of modest cost somewhere to stop
| this nonsense.
|
| Playing the Devil's Advocate here:
|
| But wouldn't that in turn incentivise actual copyright
| infringement on account of it potentially being cheaper to
| mass publish copyrighted material as opposed to request it
| being taken down?
| the8472 wrote:
| Costs could be per false claim, it would incentivize them
| to decrease their false positive rate.
| hedora wrote:
| The law is based on the doctrine of unclean hands. Judges
| decide on a case by case basis, based on the facts
| pertaining to the case.
|
| An artist finds their life's work online, and issues a
| takedown notice, not realizing it contained a few songs
| they don't notice? No big deal.
|
| A label pays a takedown notice mill, that produces
| completely bogus / mistargeted takedown requests on a
| regular basis? Scorched earth. They lose the ability to
| enforce any copyrights on their catalog.
| the8472 wrote:
| > The law is based on the doctrine of unclean hands.
| Judges decide on a case by case basis, based on the facts
| pertaining to the case.
|
| Judges don't scale and they are a step function, not an
| incentive gradient.
|
| > An artist finds their life's work online, and issues a
| takedown notice, not realizing it contained a few songs
| they don't notice? No big deal.
|
| If he had to pay a small(!) fee for mistakes in his
| takedown it would mean little harm to him since he
| protected his works with one takdown. One could even add
| an exemption for first-time mistakes. If he has to do it
| repeatedly then one would hope that he improves his
| search process.
|
| Additionally you have to consider that takedown notices
| can be filed against middle-men targeting many different
| 3rd parties at once. E.g. consider URL takedowns
| submitted to google. Google has no dirty hands and
| neither do some of the mistaken targets.
|
| Small fees would only add up if you issue bogus takedowns
| in bulk. They also have the advantage of not burdening
| the courts and providing the right incentives. The fact
| that the cost exists would drive people to reduce false
| positives which would make the penalty being required
| less often.
|
| As far as fees go one could also distinguish between fair
| use disputes vs. wholly incorrect claims. After all in
| the former case the claimant has a valid case and it is
| just that there exists a valid defense. In the latter
| case the claim itself was invalid.
|
| > A label pays a takedown notice mill, that produces
| completely bogus / mistargeted takedown requests on a
| regular basis? Scorched earth. They lose the ability to
| enforce any copyrights on their catalog.
|
| That is not what is happening in reality.
| visarga wrote:
| > That is not what is happening in reality.
|
| How can you explain this kind of events:
|
| > SoundCloud takes down D.J. Detweiler's 'remix' of John
| Cage's "4'33" for copyright infringement.
|
| > White Noise Video on YouTube Hit By Five Copyright
| Claims
|
| Not to mention that almost all classical music pieces
| recorded by students are under risk of being DMCA'ed for
| being so similar to copyrighted recordings. Classical
| music has many interpretations for the same piece and
| they are harder to tell apart than, say, pop music.
| the8472 wrote:
| Please consider a quote in its entirety. Takedown mills
| losing the ability to file claims is not what is
| happening in reality. Scorched earth (against takedown
| abuse) is not happening in reality. The first sentence is
| merely a setup of the scenario, the last two are the
| conclusion (which doesn't happen, at least not often
| enough to discourage the behavior).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Yes, the _hypothetical punishment_ is not currently
| happening in reality. You definitely misread the first
| comment.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| A sinple solution would be to create a private cause of
| action, for both the recipient and the impacted user of a
| DMCA takedown notice that is false in any essential way
| (including claim of infringement, not just the parts
| under penalty of perjury, for which there is a public
| sanction available) for actual costs or other damages or
| statutory damages, trebled for knowing or reckless
| falsehoods, with courts given explicit power to also
| require the offending notice-giver and/or copyright
| holder, if found to be engaging in a pattern and practice
| of reckless notices, to post surety and provide special
| notice in future DMCA notices issued by then (or on
| behalf, ifnthey are an owner) for a set period of years
| (say 3) allowing the recipient a 30-day window to
| investigate claims _at the sanctioned actor's expense_ to
| determine legitimacy prior to executing a takedown, with
| the safe harbor still in place if that investigation is
| conducted in good faith even if it comes to a negative
| conclusion.
| bnj wrote:
| I hadn't thought about that angle before. Is the public
| interest best served by adding friction to copyright
| enforcement, or by adding friction to fair use?
| qayxc wrote:
| Good question. I honestly don't know. We would have to
| re-evaluate the value of IP as whole first, I guess.
| lanstin wrote:
| Certainly the right to copy is different when copying is
| so much cheaper than when the laws where written. We gave
| up:the right to copy when you couldn't really copy. Now
| we can copy and maybe we want to retain that right to the
| people. Or at least rejigger so we either get more or
| give less via this exchange
| viraptor wrote:
| As long as they're properly filled out, they have to be acted
| on if the provider wants to keep their safe harbour status.
| nullsmack wrote:
| There should be a 3-strikes and you're out when it comes to
| DMCA abuse. After 3 false DMCA notices you lose all
| copyrights. That will stop this abuse once and for all.
| Running automated systems that do nothing but harass people
| over things that they are legally able to do should be
| illegal.
| hedora wrote:
| Read up on "copyright misuse". The law says a single
| infraction can invalidate all related copyrights.
|
| It has never been used in response to a DMCA takedown
| notice. It is far past time for that to happen. The
| precedent alone would end this crap.
|
| With such a precedent, Pearson would be at risk of losing
| the copyright on the entire textbook (and probably related
| course materials, tests, etc.)
| fartcannon wrote:
| Is it time for a sci-hub like event to replace github? It would
| be better for the repository of nearly all modern public
| programming creativity be something more like Wikipedia, and less
| like LinkedIn.
| viraptor wrote:
| Depending on your network model preference, there's a federated
| approach https://notabug.org/peers/forgefed and P2P
| https://radicle.xyz/ Unfortunately both are still in pretty
| early stages, but active.
| easton wrote:
| Given the technical nature of the work, developers who can't
| jive with GitHub's policies can throw up a GitLab/Gitea server
| in an hour and evade censorship. And of course, as we learned
| with youtube-dl, the issue isn't the code/commits (since
| everyone gets that with a git clone), it's the issues and PR
| history.
|
| Any public file host has to deal with the DMCA, and (for now,
| barring any evil brought on by Microsoft), I'd bet on GitHub
| siding with the developer over the lawyers. They had lots of
| incentives to go the other way in the youtube-dl case and they
| didn't, and then they put a bunch of money in a fund if someone
| wants needs a lawyer to get their project back online.
| trasz wrote:
| Should we perhaps invent a standard convention for keeping
| issues and PR history along with the usual source code in the
| repo itself?
| yissp wrote:
| https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki from
| the sqlite guy.
| mellosouls wrote:
| The notice is here:
|
| https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...
|
| Kevin Wayne (repo owner presumably) is listed as co-author on the
| book that is published by Pearson, who have issued the notice.
|
| https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Sedgewic...
| molyss wrote:
| When someone "swears under the penalty of perjury" something
| that is inaccurate, and the legal system does make it simple to
| apply that penalty, there's something wrong with the legal
| system.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Regardless of the actual form of the notice (so long as it is
| not deficient), under the DMCA the only part for which is
| actually treated as under penalty of perjury is the claim of
| the person giving notice being or representing the copyright
| owner or exclusive licensee of the the work identified
| (notably, the claim that the particular content to be taken
| down is infringing is not under penalty of perjury.)
|
| While I don't know the relationship between this
| "investigator" and Pearson, the claim that Pearson is the
| owner or exclusive licensee of the books identified does not
| appear to be in dispute.
|
| This does not appear to be a defect in the application of the
| penalty by the legal system but of what the penalty applies
| to under the relevant law.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| > and the legal system does make it simple to apply that
| penalty
|
| I assume you're missing a word there?
| salawat wrote:
| They probably meant "doesn't".
|
| If it is in error, I am curious how much work it would take
| to get that perjury result though.
| mvolfik wrote:
| yup, it was the author, see counternotice:
| https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...
| malka wrote:
| > So that the complaining party can get back to you, please
| provide both your telephone number and physical address.
|
| Ahhh I see that the DMCA is still a wonderful doxing weapon
| :)
| mvolfik wrote:
| well, if this is the author of the book, they probably have
| their contact anyways. And if the claim was clearly
| illegitimate and the owner didn't want to provide this, I
| guess he could try going without it. There are probably
| easier ways to dox people
| phoe-krk wrote:
| Yours sincerely, [private] Internet
| Investigator On behalf of: Pearson Education,
| Inc.
|
| ------------------------------------
|
| Seems like another glorious victory of the overzealous online
| copyright strikers. Nothing out of the ordinary, will likely
| get sorted out in a day or two.
| st_goliath wrote:
| > Internet Investigator
|
| Haha... that's a brilliant euphemism for "profession Google
| user". Or maybe we could call it "serial scrapist"?
|
| Of all the silly titles I tried to come up with, this sure
| hadn't crossed my mind yet. And it has a catchy ring to it
| too.
|
| "Internet Investigator" got to be somewhere up there between
| "Adult Software Engineer" (middle ground between "Junior" and
| "Senior") and "Server Captain/Commodore/Admiral".
| rzzzt wrote:
| I'm a bit of Web Browsing Enthusiast myself.
| Operyl wrote:
| It literally is the name of the company, haha.
|
| https://theinternetinvestigators.com/
| minnehaha wrote:
| Actually, "Internet investigator" is the person's job
| title, not the company name. The person listed the title
| like he is an employee or contractor representing
| Pearson. Anyone 'claiming' to represent them could have
| sent it.
| caretak3r wrote:
| Pearson. Absolutely evil.
| eaa wrote:
| So, distributed git has become sort of centralised. Maybe people
| depend too much on github? I wonder, what would happen to IT over
| the world if github will be down for a week or a month?
| csunbird wrote:
| There is literally nothing preventing someone to host they code
| on gitlab/sourcehut/their own gitea server. Most people use
| github because it is free, but the git protocol is far from
| centralized.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Thankfully `git clone kevin-wayne/algs4` doesn't default to
| asking github.com like some package managers [[docker]].
| noir_lord wrote:
| Utter chaos for a week, then a week or two of swearing at
| gitlab then the world would continue - since while we use
| github we don't really _use_ github - it 's just a shared git
| repository with a reasonably nice interface for reviewing code.
|
| That's for my company, for many open source projects the damage
| would be more severe since they often heavily use issues and GH
| project management features.
| kelnos wrote:
| The problem is that many people (including companies) use GH
| for more than just source code hosting. Bug tracking, CI/CD,
| artifact hosting, etc. That's not something most companies
| can replace in a week, unless GitLab (or others) have a
| seamless import tool. And even then, if GH is down or your
| account has been suspended, what do you import from?
| majkinetor wrote:
| Dont be naive. People depend on github for packages. Literary
| countless projects would fail to build.
| airstrike wrote:
| If you're just looking for the algorithms, there's always this C#
| port (from 7 years ago): https://github.com/angellaa/algs4
|
| Interestingly, the README includes an e-mail exchange with Kevin,
| who noted the code is GPL
| seaman1921 wrote:
| If this was a youtube channel takedown people would be mad at
| Google, but good to see at least here HN is blaming the bad
| actors like they should - ie. the copyright laws and its abusers.
| maweki wrote:
| People are mad at google for _automatic_ takedowns, as they
| enable bad actors and are arguably not in the spirit of the
| law.
|
| In this case here, github does not employ an overzealous
| automated system. This is a manual DMCA claim and the issuer is
| the single actor here, who could be to blame.
| judge2020 wrote:
| People got mad at Google for automatically honoring DMCA
| takedowns, which is what GitHub is doing, as they both have
| to if they want to maintain not being legally liable. Content
| ID is also a system people are mad with but has nothing to do
| with DMCA besides Google saying 'pretty please only enroll
| content you own into Content ID'.
| maweki wrote:
| For github this is not an automated process, nor is the
| policy based on a presumption of guilt:
|
| https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/dmca-
| takedown-...
| judge2020 wrote:
| Assuming the claimant doesn't mess up the complaint it
| might as well be automated - GH has only voluntarily not
| honored a request once with YouTube-dl (that I'm aware
| of) and that still was after YT-dl removed the README
| reference of using it to download music videos.
| matsemann wrote:
| Difference is that Github follows DMCA practices, while YouTube
| has their homemade system that bans you without a fair way of
| appealing.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Google have their own system for copyright claims which people
| get mad about. GitHub follows the DMCA laws which they have to
| follow. I put it to you that your implied claim that these
| situations are basically the same is false.
| StreamBright wrote:
| DMCA needs a song like YMCA.
| caymanjim wrote:
| This isn't worth getting your feathers ruffled over. Some
| algorithm or barely-paid human automaton flagged it, someone
| higher up will notice it, it'll be added to an exception list,
| problem solved. It's not ideal, but it's not malicious or
| nefarious or even worth talking about every time something like
| this happens. It's a simple mistake that has a simple solution.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > or even worth talking about every time something like this
| happens
|
| I think it is, because the core problem is not the wrongful
| takedown of a single repository itself, it's the outlook that
| the only way to get these "mistakes" reversed is the hope that
| it will reach the news, Youtube/Google shows us what the
| latestage of this nightmare looks like. Github is obviously not
| nearly this bad (yet?). This case will obviously be restored,
| it's a popular author, but what about people that don't have
| this reach?
|
| I don't see how talking about this situation can be a bad
| thing.
| tzs wrote:
| > I think it is, because the core problem is not the wrongful
| takedown of a single repository itself, it's the outlook that
| the only way to get these "mistakes" reversed is the hope
| that it will reach the news, Youtube/Google shows us what the
| latestage of this nightmare looks like.
|
| YouTube/Google is bad because they use their own system
| instead of or in addition to the system required to get the
| DMCA safe harbor.
|
| For sites that simply follow DMCA, such as GitHub, there is
| no need for the issue to reach the news. There is no need to
| be popular or have any reach. The most obscure poster with no
| audience can easily get their content restored. Here is what
| happens at such sites:
|
| 1. Someone claiming to represent the copyright owner files a
| take down request.
|
| 2. The site temporarily takes the content down, and notifies
| whoever posted the content.
|
| 3. The poster files a counter-notice saying that they have
| the legal right to post the content.
|
| 4. The site put the content back up, and notifies the party
| that filed the take down notice, telling them who filed the
| counter-notice.
|
| The site is then out of the loop. The content is back up, and
| the party claiming copyright violation cannot sue the site
| over this. The site is now in the DMCA safe harbor. If the
| party claiming violation wants to take it farther, they need
| to go to court and sue the party that posted the content.
|
| The counter-notice is trivial to fill out and file. Here's
| the one for this case [1] if you want to see how simple the
| form is.
|
| [1] https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-0
| 4-2...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Why should someone's 'mistakes' damage my liberties and result
| in takedown of my property?
|
| this is textbook harassment.
| janoc wrote:
| That's a good question but for the wrong audience. Take it
| with the US Congress who has adopted so lopsided copyright
| law under the heavy lobbying of the music and movie industry
| in the wake of Napster.
| liliumregale wrote:
| Is that a pun, because this was done by Pearson?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| "someone higher up will notice it" is not always true
|
| no consequences for malicious or invalid DMCA is ridiculous (1$
| penalty, paid to targeted individual/company for each invalid
| DMCA would be a good start)
| syshum wrote:
| I 100% disagree, the fact that as a society we are accepting of
| this kind of thing as "just the way it is", is the problem
|
| "Ohh its just some bot" should never be an acceptable response,
| and people creating these bots should have massive fines
| attached to their false positives. Otherwise there is no
| incentive to actually validate or improve what these automation
| systems are doing, the incentive today is the flag everything
| and worry about it later...
|
| That is not something society should accept
| ac42 wrote:
| Yes, like the parent says, don't overreact. This is totally not
| symptomatic for lopsided legislation. So please be quiet
| already, it will be easier for everyone. You are worried you
| might be next? Kid, grow up, this is life, nobody said it'd be
| easy. Here's your gun in case the tanks are coming...
|
| /s
| kevinventullo wrote:
| I give a lot of credit to Sedgewick's course for helping me break
| into the software industry, having come from an adjacent field in
| academia. I hope they can get the repo back up.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| In my case it didn't help me break into the software industry -
| somehow I already managed to do that despite some well-deserved
| imposter syndrome at the time, but it definitely leveled up the
| quality of my code
| sabujp wrote:
| let me get this straight, this was gplv3 licensed code, allowed
| by pearson, and then pearson auto dmca's it? Looks like some
| algos need to be fixed on pearson's side, in any case here you go
| : https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/home/
| leeuw01 wrote:
| Context?
| marktucker wrote:
| Kevin Wayne is one of the authors of Algorithms 4th ed. by
| Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne and he has a github repository
| called "algs4". Pearson sent github a DMCA notice for this
| repository and another. I'm not sure exactly what content he
| hosted in "algs4".
| hvdijk wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20201016112929if_/https://github..
| ..:
|
| > This public repository contains the Java source code for
| the algorithms and clients in the textbook Algorithms, 4th
| Edition by Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne. This is the
| official version--it is actively maintained and updated by
| the authors. [...]
| mrighele wrote:
| The DMCA notice linked on the page [1] gives a few more
| details.
|
| We have received information that the domain listed above,
| which appears to be on servers under your control, is offering
| unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized
| activities relating to, copyrighted works published by Pearson
| Education, Inc. Copyright work(s):
|
| Deep Learning with R 9781617295546 Algorithms 9780321573513
|
| Copyright owner(s) or exclusive licensee:
|
| Pearson Education, Inc. Copyright infringing
| material or activity found at the following location(s):
|
| https://github.com/jjallaire/deep-learning-with-r-notebooks
| https://github.com/kevin-wayne/algs4
|
| [1]
| https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/04/2021-04-2...
| IceWreck wrote:
| We should have a penalty/fine for fake DCMA requests.
|
| Big corps keep sending automated DCMAs with little consequence
| and often the little guys do have the resources to fight back.
| rvz wrote:
| Another reason to self-host. Rather than sit on someone else's
| platform.
| acdha wrote:
| This is in the law, but it's rarely enforced. Stepping up
| education for judges and support for people filing lawsuits
| against major companies would be a relatively easy way to start
| making the automated bots riskier to run.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Is it? I always thought there is only a fine for
| misrepresenting that you are representing the copyright
| owner. Not for falsely claiming a piece of work is indeed
| infringing.
| acdha wrote:
| Yes -- see page 12 here:
|
| https://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
|
| "Penalties are provided for knowing material
| misrepresentations in either a notice or a counter notice.
| Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that
| material is infringing, or that it was removed or blocked
| through mistake or misidentification, is liable for any
| resulting damages (including costs and attorneys' fees)
| incurred by the alleged infringer, the copyright owner or
| its licensee, or the service provider."
|
| Here's the actual text:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512#f
|
| I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that by now the
| courts have confirmed that it's not just enough to say that
| you own the copyright on the material: you also have to
| confirm that the person you're sending the claim to doesn't
| have a right to use the material as well and that includes
| fair-use. If you were, say, using a Disney clip in a film
| studies context they would likely be liable if a takedown
| bot sent a DMCA claim unless they could show that you did
| something like posting the entire film claiming it was for
| "study" purposes.
|
| In this case, that's highly relevant since this repository
| was apparently released under an open source license so
| even if Pearson held the copyright they wouldn't be able to
| take away the permission granted by the open source license
| unless they could prove that it was never legally approved
| for release under that license.
| olliej wrote:
| Knowingly is the problem - it implies intent so erroneous
| claims don't fall afoul of it. Obviously attacks on
| critics do and should be penalized but that doesn't
| happen either - it requires a lawyer that will cost much
| more than you'll ever get. Until the law is amended to
| require the victims be compensated for time and legal
| expenses there's still no real cost to fraud
| gravypod wrote:
| Another important part of the law: "or that it was
| removed or blocked through mistake or misidentification"
| mabbo wrote:
| Even simpler, require those filing a claim to put down a
| monetary deposit. If the accused disputes, they too file a
| deposit.
|
| The winner gets the money back and the platform gets to keep
| the losers deposit as a fee for having a trained, certified
| human make the decision.
|
| Make the fees scale up with the number of claims by an accuser.
|
| No one would file a frivolous claim. No one would dispute an
| obviously correct claim. The cost of having humans decide is
| covered, so platforms like Google have no excuse.
| swiley wrote:
| This is a fantastic idea, I'm sure there are issues with it
| but none are immediately obvious.
| olliej wrote:
| It means that people without spare cash completely lose the
| ability to appeal.
|
| I don't know why a counterclaim should require a deposit -
| DMCA is already a guilty until proven innocent law, and
| merely counterclaiming doesn't put your content back
| online.
| jedimastert wrote:
| > If the accused disputes, they too file a deposit.
|
| If you can't afford to loss $100, you probably can't afford
| to temporarily not have it either.
| yccs27 wrote:
| This seems like the perfect way to enable frivolous
| takedowns, because the accused might not be able to pay the
| deposit to dispute the claim. Additionally, small artists
| might similarly become unable to enforce their rights.
|
| (And if the deposit isn't too big, do you think a few dollars
| will deter billion-dollar companies?)
| mabbo wrote:
| Is it worse than the existing system where there is no
| cost, and no way to fight back?
|
| I'm not arguing that it's a perfect system, but with a few
| adjustments I feel it's a much better one than exists
| today.
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| DMCA?
| truth_ wrote:
| Not totally unrelated: Pearson is a piece of trash company. They
| sell very overpriced textbooks and always use DRM in online
| copies. They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them
| mandated. Students are put through them. And guess who provides
| the certificate required by teachers to evaluate those exam
| copies? Yes, Pearson.
|
| And they make a ton of money.
|
| Please watch this talk for more context (even if you don't like
| TED talks): https://youtu.be/BnC6IABJXOI
| bayindirh wrote:
| IMHO, the books I've bought from InformIT are not that bad.
| They're only watermarked, and were useful. IDK, maybe because
| they're not geared towards universities.
|
| I'd happily stand corrected though.
| OnlyLys wrote:
| I've bought a few Pearson ebooks from InformIT (all the books
| were programming related), and they all come in PDF format
| with watermarks.
|
| Honestly, I'm happy as long as publishing companies don't
| force me to use their crappy proprietary ebook readers.
| shirleyquirk wrote:
| to start with I couldn't get over the presenter's poetry slam
| style but what made me cry serious salty f*ing tears was his
| explication of how inequality impacts day to day learning. as
| in hunger. literal, biological hunger the day before your
| standardized tests. stresses you had no input into and should
| have no bearing on your future.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > very overpriced textbooks
|
| Not just way overpriced, the few Pearson books I happen to own
| are of an alarmingly low quality. The pages of a phone book
| look and feel like premium paper compared to my copy of
| Blitzer's College Algebra.
| vector_spaces wrote:
| Not to mention some of them have wonderful anti-features,
| such as physical books that have a handful of online-only
| chapters that you can only access if you buy the textbook
| new, thereby reducing the value of used copies.
| generationP wrote:
| You'll then appreciate the "Pearson New International
| Editions" (with a chapter and the preface removed to tank
| the resale value).
| ur-whale wrote:
| libgen ftw
| temp8964 wrote:
| > They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them
| mandated. Students are put through them.
|
| This is totally false. State standardized test is the natural
| consequence of state public education accountability system.
| There must be a comparable measure across all the public
| schools in the state as the foundation for accountability
| measurements. And all (>95%) the students must be tested for
| equity reasons. No matter how many misinformation you read
| about standardized tests, the simple fact is that it is the
| only way to measure student learning of a huge population and
| get meaningful / comparable results. Is it perfect? No. Is
| there a better alternative? No.
|
| The whole idea that a few testing companies imposed the
| standardized tests on students is simply a conspiracy theory.
| manquer wrote:
| It is nuanced, they don't directly drive the need for
| standardization, but drive to privatize the standardization.
|
| Doing that, they can influence a lot on the scoring, quality,
| content and certifications around the standardization and
| fund the psychometric research establishing validity/equity
| of the tests.
|
| Like any other big org biz, specing the RFP is one easy way
| to win the contract.
|
| A decision marker (corporate or government) is likely to
| choose and mandate a pearson test rather than fund the
| research and development of their own which best fits their
| needs because it is easier.
|
| Unlike other industries testing by is nature becomes
| monopolistic, nobody is going to say you can either of these
| three tests : it is hard to compare between two tests, so
| winner takes all.
|
| Pearson and others in the space, exploit this by high prices
| , poor content etc because that's what monopoly tend to do.
|
| This is all because of privatization of school vendors, why
| can't content and tests be developed by the state as well ?.
| Many countries do this.
| temp8964 wrote:
| I am not sure what you are talking about. There are several
| testing companies, Pearson is not the only one. And states
| have a selection process and technical review process done
| by outside psychometricians.
|
| Yes. There are places where tests were developed by the
| government agencies, which are not professionals. Mostly
| their tests lack psychometric regorious, not comparable
| across years.
|
| I'm not sure what you meant "poor content". A few flaws
| here and there?
| manquer wrote:
| I very clearly said pearson and others in the space.
|
| If reviews can be done by psychometricians, why test
| building cannot ?
|
| There are many many qualified professionals affiliated
| with major universities- several of them owned by the
| state. Is it difficult to imagine them developing the
| tests?
|
| Many of these same professionals consult with testing
| companies for building the tests, so it is not like these
| companies have some magic expertise no one else has.
|
| Using an vendor test gives that companies allied products
| basically an Monopoly for that test/skill.
|
| This is a fact of this industry, and testing companies
| will use it to their advantage because that's their
| business. It is in public interest not to privatize the
| test itself, so there is competition amongst providers of
| allied products and free market can prevail.
|
| Current setup is like government tax code is set by
| intuit and you can only file tax via turbo tax and
| nothing else
| temp8964 wrote:
| You are just imagine things as an outsider. Testing
| companies not only have the best psychometricians and
| they have many many psychometricians and stasticians work
| for them.
|
| Yes. University professors do consulting works. How do
| they have the capacity to build a product as professional
| companies do? ...
| manquer wrote:
| I am no outsider, I have spent last 10 years partnering/
| integrating with testing companies . I have seen tests
| built and marketed and sold.
|
| All tests have frameworks underlying them , do you know
| how long it takes to establish a framework ? How many
| peer reviewed papers that have to published, and time it
| takes to shape the opinion of the ecosystem to make it
| acceptable? Without a established validity and equity
| nobody is going to buy the test, why would they risk it
| to get sued?
|
| You think companies go through the full journey of years
| and take all the risk? in most cases they only come in
| the latter stages and commercialize and adapt it.
| madhadron wrote:
| The question, then, is why not have the state university
| build the tests and write the textbooks? Then you fund
| the actual creation once and can straightforwardly fund
| updates and alterations as needed.
| temp8964 wrote:
| State universities are not good at doing either. There
| are not enough psychometricians or test writers or
| textbook writers in psychology or curriculum and
| instruction departments.
|
| State government is not better at doing things than big
| companies. Hope your solution is not to ask the
| government to do everything.
| manquer wrote:
| You think testing companies keep all the
| psychometricians/text book writers on payroll ?
|
| Many of the big tests are developed within an academic
| setting with university/public funding then licensed out.
| Almost every book is written by university professor then
| published by pearson or others.
|
| State government does not outsource writing the tax code
| or the other regulations to companies why is tests any
| different ?
| temp8964 wrote:
| You can't tell the difference between a prototype and
| product. OK. Lets go to the basics. Do you at least
| understand the state standardized tests are commonly
| given to grade 3 to grade 10 students on three subjects
| (English, Math, Science)? That's 24 tests (a few grades
| could share the same test, but that's complicate). Most
| state universities don't even have 12 psychometricians.
| Lol. Of course the reality is much more complicated than
| 24. You are just imagining things with no understanding
| of the scale of the complexity of the reality.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Another aspect you fail to understand is that because the
| accountability / rating / funding of local education
| agencies is involved, the state government and the state
| university do NOT want to and can NOT get involved in
| producing the test. It must be produced by an outsider.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I read their comment not as saying that standardized tests
| are Pearson's fault, but that Pearson gets states to mandate
| that they are Pearson tests.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Every state has a selection process. Several testing
| companies will bet on the contract.
| truth_ wrote:
| There's a lot of shady practices involved there, that is
| one of my points.
| truth_ wrote:
| Is that not clear from my comment? Whether standardized
| tests are good or bad is a whole other debate.
|
| The point here is- they lobby to get standardized tests
| mandated where they were not, then they lobby snd push
| _their_ tests _for statewide use_ very hard. All school
| districts have to buy test questions and other
| infrastructure from them only. And only Pearson certified
| teachers can evaluate those copies. And every step of the
| process involves Pearson getting paid.
|
| This is like the Mafia.
|
| Thanks for pointing it out.
| temp8964 wrote:
| You apparently don't know what you are talking about. No.
| Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized tests
| mandated where they were not. The federal government
| mandates this as a requirement for federal money.
|
| Districts do not pay for the state test or buy test
| questions from Pearson...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Testing companies do not lobby to get standardized
| tests mandated where they were not.
|
| Yes, they do.
|
| > The federal government mandates this as a requirement
| for federal money.
|
| Sure, some mandates come from the federal government;
| others are from state governments, and still others from
| local governments.
|
| Guess who lobbies legislators making those decisions,
| especially at the federal level, but also at the state
| level, and sometimes, especially for larger
| jurisdictions, at the local level?
| temp8964 wrote:
| Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if
| they don't lobby? Same.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Assume what you said is true, guess what will happen if
| they don't lobby? Same.
|
| Obviously, they disagree, or they wouldn't spend money
| lobbying, which isn't something companies do just to burn
| money. They do it because they expect RoI on the money
| spent lobbying.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Can you give an example what will happen if states do not
| use standardized tests?
| nitrogen wrote:
| If testing companies don't lobby, then states can develop
| their own tests that meet the federal guidelines. I have
| a family member who is an educator and has contributed
| candidate questions to their state's standardized testing
| board.
| shakaijin wrote:
| Also, they release new versions of books all the time and force
| their use in classes, making it impossible to use 2nd hand
| textbooks in a lot of cases. *I mean, come on. How of ten do
| fundamental physics change... Pearson is a company that should
| not exist.
| swiley wrote:
| This one reason is why it's nice to take classes from
| professors that base most of your grade on exams rather than
| homework.
|
| You can pick one book for the prose and another for the
| practice problems and neither have to be whatever the
| professor recommended.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Plugging open source text books. There are many high quality
| option out there that are openly licensed. Openstax is a
| project by Rice University that has textbooks for most gen ed
| courses. openstax.org/
| harikb wrote:
| Thanks for the link. Didn't know. Btw, this is why they
| lobby for state mandates. A single teacher cannot make an
| exception
|
| Situation in private school is not better. A prominent
| private high school in Bay Area, made me run around like a
| crazy man scavenging used books from all over the place
| because the recommended books were out of stock. They won't
| publish the exact book name until after classes begin in
| August and apparently varies by teacher by year. This is
| after paying $$$ fees equivalent to buying a new car. Next
| year I pulled my kid out of it.
| [deleted]
| smolder wrote:
| I know of a company that had a pretty large set of
| creative commons licensed learning materials they put
| together, along with tools to customize lesson plans and
| rearrange/edit material, make online quizzes, etc. It was
| offered as a good low cost digital replacement to
| traditional textbooks, aimed at colleges. Follett, the #1
| textbook distributor (which interestingly has common
| roots with Barnes and Noble) bought the company. Shortly
| thereafter, the product mentioned was discontinued. The
| professors that had adopted it, I assume, were somewhat
| inconvenienced.
| legerdemain wrote:
| Was this at Harker? I bet it was Harker.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| textbook and education material, in an open way? OK let's
| look.. but.. Ghostery[0] in Chrome shows:
|
| Google AdWords Conversion <icon>; Twitter Advertising
| <icon>; DoubleClik; Facebook Custom Audience; LinkedIn Ads;
| Twitter Conversion Tracking; Google Dynamic Marketing;
| Drawbridge
|
| Analytics: Google Analytics; CrazyEgg; PulseAnalytics;
| Facebook Connect; Pardot; LinkedIn Analytics <icon> ;
| PulseInsight
|
| Can someone give some insight into how much "Surveillance
| Capitalism" is being done here? Facebook is a giant red-
| flag to me, personally..
|
| [0] https://www.ghostery.com/
| truth_ wrote:
| That's an unethical practice employed by some companies.
| Although in many cases it can be circumvented by buying old
| textbooks anyway.
|
| I am glad that many CS authors nowadays make textbooks
| available for free. And companies like O'Reilly, Packt, and
| Manning provide DRM free copies.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| If you have an ACM Membership, you get access to tons of
| books too!
| [deleted]
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| also many professor make wink-and-nod that student may
| simply "find pdf copy" from internet. good ones are not
| desiring for to make students pay large moneys.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Bad ones on the other hand make you buy their badly
| photocopied, handwritten notes from the university copy
| center, where the receipt is itemized as:
|
| Binding and printing: $1.50
|
| Royalties to professor X: $$
|
| I literally changed majors back in my school days over
| those shenanigans by the department head.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| At least the university copy center is open about it vs
| taking the blame themselves for ridiculous printing fees.
|
| I would expect better from Professor X though.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I got a bit pissed that this for one course. Wasn't the
| professor's fault, but rather the school.
|
| (in 2011) University tells incoming students they must
| check the book list for their course and get books before
| classes start. Books are expensive.
|
| First day of class - professor gives everyone a PDF of
| the physics book I just spend $200 on. Says, "the
| university requires that I list at least one book for the
| course and they can't communicate with the students
| beforehand.
|
| Never bought books before the first day of class again.
| generationP wrote:
| I've seen similar things, with the reasoning being less
| "the university requires the professor to list at least
| one required text" (this one would be easy to sidestep:
| just require a cheap or free one and then use another)
| and more "the texts listed are required will be sold to
| students at a discount, so students can only profit from
| this... as long as they are in the know".
| bronson wrote:
| When I tried using a previous edition, the page numbers and
| most of the exercises didn't line up. "Thursday's test will
| be on pp 144-172 inclusive, and get to know exercise 5.17."
| It put me at a surprisingly big disadvantage.
|
| Pretty sure the publishers anticipated this.
| rococode wrote:
| That's often the only thing that actually substantially
| changes between editions. Shuffle the exercise numbers
| and change the font and spacing and voila, brand new
| edition completely incompatible with older versions!
| bch wrote:
| If that's true, can't there be some consumer class-action
| applied?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Class actions, like any lawsuit, require a law to be
| broken.
| truth_ wrote:
| If the teachers are helpful, this would not be an issue.
| In most places I went to, teachers understood, and some
| peer always helped people with older textbooks. For
| problem set additions or extra chapters or pages, we used
| to photocopy those pages before high-res cameras became a
| norm in mobile phones.
| modin wrote:
| OT but is there a reason one would not like TED talks? Your
| parenthesis made me feel it could be controversial (comparable
| to social media).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| TED gives a platform to pseudoscience.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7WSf2fusU4
| matsemann wrote:
| TEDx talks (like the linked one is) are not proper TED talks,
| there are affiliated events all over hosting them. While
| there are many good TEDx talks, many of them aren't what you
| would expect when hearing the TED name. Especially bad is it
| that some TEDx events let quacks talk, which gives them a
| kind of legitimacy based on TED's reputation even though
| they're saying bullshit. Of course, this commingling has also
| tainted TED's brand.
|
| The other thing is that most TED talks follow a certain
| formula. They do because it works, but watching many of them
| it sticks out and can be a bit annoying. There's probably a
| meta TED talk pointing out this somewhere.
| salawat wrote:
| You know, there is utility to letting the "quacks" talk,
| right?
|
| Ever had a thought that just kept popping up in your head,
| that you then mentally suppress because "Dear <insert
| religious figure here>, how horrifying."
|
| After doing that it keeps coming back again and again?
| Usually after a shorter and shorter period of time, because
| it becomes an indexing thought for recollections of all the
| times you've squashed it or thought about all the ways in
| which it was wrong?
|
| Ever then talkedabout itwith someone else then had a
| cathartic release from the sharing, and possibly even a
| moment of relief that someone else besides you stumbled on
| <horrible thought> too?
|
| It's the same dynamic. Just writ at a societal scale. It's
| why no censorship is a truly good idea. Bad ideas crop up
| organically as we've got a constant influx of new members
| of society seing the same warts, the same problems,
| following the same dead ends each and every one of us has.
| How are they to recognize a false start without being
| exposed to them?
|
| The part that frightens people is that previously, you
| never had it possible for the whole world's population of
| false starters to get into one place and coordinate in
| real-time. You had an implicit depletion of critical mass
| activity that ensured the feedback loop for these ideas
| petered out, or remained tightly constrained to just the
| local nuts. The world we're in means that barrier has
| fallen, so everybody has to be able to cope with the entire
| planet's equivalent of the crazies all the time
| realistically.
|
| It's a learned skill. Only practice gets you better at it,
| and I assure you, however good you think you are, cut the
| estimate in half. Odds are you've got fundamental blind
| spots you haven't even run into the craziness for yet.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Indeed: https://youtu.be/X9advgMBbdo
| sitkack wrote:
| TED Talk or a pitch for VC money, "Just two Ivy League
| grads working 6 figure tech jobs with a little too much
| time on our hands."
| ok123456 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cflCyyEA2I
|
| much better version.
| klodolph wrote:
| TED started giving nearly anyone a platform, which changed it
| from a curated set of higher-quality presentations into
| something more like YouTube. There are a ton of TED
| presentations full of debunked science. The entire vibe of
| TED talks seems a bit self-congratulatory and without
| substance, IMO. There's also TEDx, which has the same
| problems but worse.
|
| There are still good TED talks, but you have to sort through
| TED the same way you sort through YouTube... and at that
| point, YouTube starts looking a lot better.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| There are some _great_ TED[x] talks, like "Ducks Go Quack,
| Chickens Say Cluck":
|
| https://youtu.be/tom6_ceTu9s
|
| And "How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk":
|
| https://youtu.be/8S0FDjFBj8o
| gumby wrote:
| I never liked TED talks.
|
| I attended one TED back when they were super exclusive,
| _because_ they were super exclusive. The good lesson: super
| exclusive for the sake of it a waste of time.*
|
| TED talks were pretty much of the "I am doing this cool thing
| and isn't it so _exciting_?" That actually does sound pretty
| cool: the world is full of exciting things I've never heard
| of or have heard of but never appreciated.
|
| The reality, both in the old TED and the new: the talks are
| almost all structured in the same mode: "you are smart for
| listening to this info that other people don't appreciate."
| Validating the listener for spending their time listening.
|
| If I wanted that I'd go on a walk with my dog. Which I do
| instead.
|
| * things can be exclusive just because there's finite space
| and you want to have people who contribute (e.g don't invite
| me to a medievalists convention; I'll have fun but won't add
| to the discussion). This works if it's not self-
| congratulatory and if people pro actively mix it up over time
| to bring in new ppl.
| [deleted]
| glup wrote:
| A lot of academics and scientists I know dislike TED talks.
| First the name means (T)echnology, (E)ntertainment, and
| (D)esign -- which are all proximal to, but quite different
| from, actual science. If anything, it turns science into
| consumer products, and gloms it with self-help and
| entertainment in a quasi-megachurch format (hint:
| "innovation" is the savior; and everything is cast as
| innovation, esp. technological). Second, it induces a race to
| the bottom in terms of simplification and overselling
| conclusion / significance (compare with the perspective that
| knowledge production requires deep backgrounds to truly
| understand, and that the results of most experiments /
| analyses / models of the real world are fairly nuanced).
| Third, the stuff that comes from their franchising (TEDx)
| contains some real garbage.
| gravypod wrote:
| In college we had to use them. It was a financial burden on
| myself. $100/course essentially. Our school mandated that we
| take homeworks using Pearson's online system. This means if you
| found a used copy of the book it was essentially waste. You
| needed to have a one-time-use code (printed on the book) to do
| your homework. If you didn't, you'd essentially fail the class.
| Also, the system was buggy.
|
| The entire thing is a racket.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Why is education like this in the US? Is it the teachers who
| willingly allow students to spend so much unnecessarily? Is
| it the admins? Do they get paid to do this stuff?
| g_p wrote:
| I think educators are certainly to blame - as much as it's
| convenient to blame admin staff, educators in my experience
| set the course book.
|
| Pearson etc offer them a time saver they don't have to pay
| for - they take out the effort of assigning and marking
| exercises, and don't add any cost to the educator. The
| students pay, and Pearson uses these codes to inconvenience
| students and force them to buy new copies.
|
| If you think like an MBA, it's a great idea - the person in
| decision making power benefits from this move (exercises
| handled for them), is probably unaware of the issue for
| students, and has more time to spend on something else they
| need to do (raising grants, trying to write papers to keep
| going on the tenure treadmill). But you also get to sell a
| new copy of each book annually, at full price, without used
| sales cannibalising your returns. Given there isn't a huge
| growth in universities each year, this is a great way to
| boost revenues sustainably.
|
| In my experience on the other side of the pond, we used 1
| textbook in the entire degree. It was reasonably priced,
| readily available second hand, and didn't have any single
| use license codes. Indeed, one instructor used to upload
| the relevant chapters of their own book as PDF files,
| insisting nobody buy the book as it wasn't worth it!!
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Because in US the social fabric is based on money. So it's
| not something you would necessarily consider odd. Kinda how
| Germans say "was always like this, why should we change"
| but in different contexts.
|
| The other part is that Pearsons lobbies, the tests are
| already accepted as mandatory and then not every teacher is
| capable of coming up with his own test that allows you to
| then perform well in the Pearson test. You probably also
| risk a lot if you used your own test.
|
| It's basically industry developing its own industry.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I think a lot of this hides behind the notion of
| "accredited" universities and courses.
|
| Some education board (with heavy influence from various
| companies) decides that you need to select from a set of
| curriculum to be accredited. Other universities (and some
| employers) won't honor credits or degrees unless they're
| from accredited courses.
| hansvm wrote:
| As one data point, this only ever happened to me in my
| general courses -- a department would choose a book that
| several lecturers would use to teach hundreds of mostly
| disinterested students. In that context it makes a lot of
| sense; the decision maker isn't any single instructor, and
| there's a large pressure to instill a baseline level of
| knowledge into way too many people at once.
|
| All of my courses with smaller class sizes were much more
| careful with their book selections; occasionally those
| books were still expensive (even used), but only if they
| were really the best tool for the job. Even with expensive
| books though, this kind of online subscription nonsense was
| never used.
| generationP wrote:
| For anyone looking for the code:
|
| archive.org doesn't have the source, but it has the list of forks
| ( https://web.archive.org/web/20200908104954/https://github.co...
| ). The forks themselves are still online. For instance,
| https://github.com/FGM-148/algs4 . As usual with forks, use
| caution.
|
| Then there is the website of the book
| https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/code/ . This might be a less
| useful format, though.
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