Wednesday, May 7, 2014

WoltersKluwer's Connected Casebook Policy

Because so many law-school-based legal historians teach the Property course, and many of those assign the Dukeminier casebook, I'm posting this pointer to a petition circulated by Maryland Law's James Grimmelmann.

Update

Today Professor Grimmelmann sent the following message to signers of his petition:
Today, Aspen announced that students "will have a choice" to participate in the Casebook Connect program or to buy a traditional printed casebook."

Whether this is a change, or whether Aspen intended this policy all along and simply misstated it in the initial emails, today's announcement is great news. Students will continue to be free to buy, sell, and rent casebooks, just as first sale has always allowed. Keeping casebooks affordable and protecting consumers' rights under copyright are still both important issues, but today they both won a round, thanks to you. Your signatures and messages sent a strong message to publishers that we take these issues seriously and will vote with our syllabi. Thanks also to Aspen for doing the right thing by not compelling students to "buy" books they can't keep.