LJNDawson.com, Consulting to the Book Publishing Industry
Book Publishing Industry Consultant

Harvard Coop: ISBNs are our intellectual property

In what must be one of the most incredible arguments in the world of book data, the Harvard Coop has been punting students out of its store for jotting down ISBNs and pricing information (in an attempt to do an online search to see if they can find the books cheaper elsewhere) - on the premise that the ISBNs are the bookstore's intellectual property and the students are thus violating copyright law by taking them down.

Here's the real deal, in case anyone is wondering: 

If an ISBN is anyone's property, it's the publisher's property. The publisher bought and paid for the ISBN. The Coop is way out of line on this one. What those students are doing is completely legal. The only way the Coop could justifiably kick students out of the store is if they have a policy stating that comparison shopping is not permitted in the store.

This situation, however, adds fuel to the textbook-pricing-is-out-of-control fire - and furthers our own argument that digital textbooks are pretty much the only way costs are going to come down on textbooks, and that libraries will be playing an increasing role in textbook distribution just as they do with scholarly journal distribution. For more on this, see the latest issue of The Big Picture, or download our white paper, "What Publishers Should Know About Libraries."

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