A new study from the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) found that downloading course
materials from unauthorized web sites is on the rise. Student Attitudes Toward
Content in Higher Education showed the percentage of students pirating course
materials jumped from 20% in 2010 to 34% in the most recent survey.
The practice of students copying chapters of a required
text owned by a peer is also on the upswing, rising from 21% to 31%. In
addition, the survey found that 75% of faculty feel the overall coast of a
college degree is too high (despite just 33% of the respondents saying the
costs were too high at their own institution), and that they said both print
and digital course materials were priced higher than their value to the class.
The information came as no surprise to blogger Nate
Hoffelder of The Digital Reader.
“Students are pirating more textbooks because they
can’t afford to buy them,” he wrote. “Do you think they would go through the
hassle of photocopying a textbook if they had another choice?”
Hoffelder went on to claim that the rate of students
pirating textbooks has been growing at least since the end of 2011. He provided
statistics from March 2013 that showed the use of unauthorized text web sites
had increased 40%, scanning course material was up 37%, illicit sharing between
students was up 28%, and piracy was up 26%.
