There are countless complaints about the catch 22 situation of needing money to continue, but no job yet to provide it. One of the unavoidable major expenses faced by most students is compulsory spending on textbooks.

“According to a study (pdf) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, textbook prices have increased FOUR TIMES the rate of inflation of other finished goods for the period of 1990-2009,” the admin of LibraryPirate.me [LP] told TorrentFreak this morning.

LibraryPirate was founded a little over a year ago with a site mission of providing college students with an alternative to continuously rising textbook prices.

“Our mission is simple and specific,” LP’s admin explains. “To revolutionize the digital e-textbook industry and change it permanently.”

LibraryPirate’s founder believes that real-world business rules don’t apply when it comes to textbook pricing and he bemoans the often unnecessary annual updates that render last year’s textbook obsolete, just as this year’s version – with its 6% annual price uplift – becomes the dictated ‘choice’.

“The Government Accountability Office reports that the average student spends about $1000 on textbooks each year, or 26 percent of their yearly tuition [source, pdf]. Publishers defend their actions claiming increased expenses in updating this supplementary material are only being passed along to the student,” he explains.

“While there is a need to keep information current, most of what is taught in big introductory courses simply isn’t going to change that much from year to year, or even from decade to decade. For example, Calculus was invented 300 years ago however new editions of textbooks are released like clockwork.”

In common with the music and movie industries, a relatively small group of textbook publishers have a monopoly on the market. Even congressional intervention is said to have failed in dislodging their grip.

“New Textbook legislation was introduced by the Higher Education Opportunity Act (H.R. 4137), which passed 380-49 in the House and 83-8 in the Senate on July 31. The bill was signed by President Obama on August 14 and went into effect July 1, 2010,” LP’s admin explains.

“The bill aims at making textbook publishers more up front with students about textbook pricing and also forces them to sell some additional course materials separately. While this is a start, it is clear now that these measures have done nothing to prevent the continued rise in inflation of textbooks and new digital course material.”

Furthermore, as is becoming increasingly common in the video games market, publishers are taking steps to discourage student use of the pre-owned books market. LP’s admin says they are achieving this by offering discounts up to 20% on their eBook products to encourage uptake, but then disqualifying the purchaser from selling the product by implementing DRM.

But LP’s admin, who says that he experienced the street-level effects of the monopoly during his time as a student, intends to undermine it through what he describes as the open access movement.

“Open source textbooks alone will, without a doubt, turn the textbook industry on its head by taking away the power from the major publishing companies,” he explains.

“Those with access to e-textbook resources — students, librarians, scientists and professors have the responsibility to share this knowledge openly with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the majority of universities do not utilize open source textbooks today. Professors continue to require students to buy hundreds of dollars in textbooks and ‘kiss the ring’ of textbook publishers.”

This open source dream is not yet reality, which automatically leaves students in the hands of the textbook monopoly. However, LP’s admin says he intends to meet demand by making ALL textbooks open for everyone to use and distribute.

“To strike back against the textbook monopolists we must hit them where it will hurt the most – not in the testicles, but in the pocketbook,” he says. “Tell all your friends not to buy books from the campus bookstore when they can get them for free online. ”

While there are currently around one thousand textbooks indexed on LibraryPirate.me, the site’s founder hopes that through collaborative effort that collection will grow.

“Grab every textbook you can get your hands on and scan it so that everyone in the world can have a chance at education,” he says. “Professors, students, and avid readers alike, it is our responsibility to do everything we can to make education available to all who seek it, and this policy flies directly in the face of the textbook publishers that are using you to line their pockets.”

While many users of torrent and other file-sharing sites will simply be looking for casual digital entertainment to fill their free time, the careers of those searching for textbooks could hang in the balance depending on whether they find their target material or not.

But of course, just as poor students want to save money on their way to a career, textbook publishers need to make money in order to survive too. Is there a moral difference between downloading a song or movie and downloading a career-enabling educational textbook, even if it is provided at unfair prices through an anti-competitive monopoly?

“While many may view the open source movement as blatant ‘piracy’, I believe they are overlooking the obvious moral imperative at play here,” TorrentFreak was told. “Personally, this notion became very clear to me after attending college and has remained the driving motivation behind the LibraryPirate project.”

“It’s no secret that college students today are simply victims of a broken educational system. Until real steps are taken to ensure textbook material is made more affordable and accessible to students, I only see one path to moral high ground.

“So, in the historical tradition of civil disobedience, the time has come for students to declare their opposition to this private theft of education,” LP’s admin concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

At its height the site had more than 70,000 members, with over 20,000 peers trading files at any given point in time.

The site managed to fly under the radar for a long time, but as it expanded the press and book publishers started to take notice. This unwanted attention led to numerous takedown requests and legal threats were also directed at the owner of the site, who saw no other option than to turn the final page in October 2008.

After it closed, students were left with no other option than to buy their books or to find other sources where they could share them. Oddly enough, the gap left by TextBookTorrents was never filled in the two years since its demise, despite the fact that eBooks have become mainstream and eReaders more affordable. This absence didn’t go unnoticed to a duo of college students, who launched the site Torrent My Books a few days ago.

“We were disheartened when we heard that TextbookTorrents was shutting down way back when, and since we did not see any sites coming up to replace it, we decided to take it upon ourselves to do something,” one of the founders explained to TorrentFreak.

The purpose of TorrentMyBooks is to be a place where people can share books freely, not just textbooks, although that is the main focus. The main difference with the late TextBookTorrents is that the site doesn’t have a tracker. It just provides an index of book related torrents where users can add to and download from.

The appearance and feature set of the site is similar to many other sites. Visitors can browse through the different sections, and the homepage of the site shows the more recent titles added to the various categories. TorrentMyBooks currently lists just over hundred torrents, but the founders hope there will be thousands of titles available soon.

“The motivation for creating the site is based on a personal experience of mine in college,” half of the duo told TorrentFreak. “One semester I needed to take an Art History class and it required the students to buy a textbook which cost roughly $150 USD. Fast forward to the end of the semester, I go to the school book store to sell back the book. I am told flat out that it is out of date and they cannot buy the book.”

“I was appalled that an art HISTORY book goes out of date. How does a book about the history of art change so much that you need a new edition? The only reason I can think of is that publishers have a monopoly and are able to force students to buy a new edition,” TorrentMyBook’s co-founder says.

It is pretty clear where the motivation of the site’s founders come from, but then there’s always the follow up question that deals with the morality of the operation. Here, the site’s co-founder – annex textbook vigilante – pictures himself on the right side of the argument as well.

“The morality of torrenting books is not clearly defined. You can’t really put a price on sharing knowledge such as books. That’s why most libraries are free. I also do not mind paying for books but publishers like to take advantage of students which does not seem right to me. Also, as a student, I do notice that people are looking for a cheaper alternative to books.”

Then there’s one hurdle left, the legality of the operation. Considering the history of TextBookTorrents and the piracy paranoia among book publishers as of late, the founders of TorrentMyBooks can expect plenty of DMCA notices, or worse. This is something they considered before starting the site, but nonetheless they will carry out their ambitions.

“One must be worried about the legal implications. However, we are going to be diligent in creating the number one source for books,” we were told.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

All this attention led to thousands of new visitors to the tracker, but the publicity also had a downside. Geekman, the administrator of Textbook Torrents told TorrentFreak that their host, xlHost, and their domain registrar, Dreamhost, both received a takedown request a few days after all the press coverage. “We received a DMCA notice from Pearson Education a week or so prior, which we complied with, but it was a group of publishers that contacted our host,” he told us.

Although the tracker was pretty popular, with around 20,000 peers trading files at any given point in time, Geekman said he had never received takedown notices from big publishers before. “We had a couple of emails from individuals before, but nothing from organizations. One was an editor complaining about being cheated out of his 10¢ per copy commission.”

On July 5th Dreamhost suspended Geekman’s account, and despite his many efforts to contact them, they simply didn’t respond to his inquiries. It took more than a week before he was allowed to transfer the domain. Now, more than a month after the site went down, Textbook Torrents returns, and it’s not planning to go away anytime soon.

Geekman plans to focus on making the site’s resources redundant, to reduce vulnerability and to make sure the site remains online. In addition he will work on the legal issues and improve the privacy of the site’s users. One of the most drastic changes is the decision to stop the logging of IP-addresses, which means that the site will stop ratio tracking. Making the tracker public will ensure the privacy of the users, in case the server is compromised.

“I want to see the textbook industry change such that we are no longer needed,” Geekman says when we ask him about his main motivation to bring the site back, while mentioning cheap books and responsible business practices as examples of positive change.

He doesn’t think publishers should give away their books –even though some authors profit from doing so– but he does think most books are too expensive. “The companies may be corrupt, but they have a right to make money. They can’t be expected to give their material away for free. After all, there is a significant amount of work involved in the production of a textbook. We need a middle ground,” he says.

“I’m not naive enough to say that if something can be distributed in a digital form it should be free but there needs to be some adaptation here,” Geekman added. For now, however, all the publishers see is a threat to their revenue stream, as Allan Ryan of Harvard Business Publishing put it: “We have been fairly vigorous in monitoring these sites and in requesting that they take down our copyrighted content.”

They sure have something to monitor now, as Textbook Torrents has made its return…because you still can’t torrent beer. Currently, the site can only be accessed directly via the IP-address, however, the domain should be working again shortly.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.