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Comment by mgkimsal | Hacker News Reader

How long before textbook publishers start threatening to sue districts that use these sorts of texts? Or start playing with prices, such that districts are 100% "publisher X" get discount pricing, while other districts get "a la carte" pricing at 3-5x other districts?

Yes, I'm a bit far out about this stuff, but education is big business and the more this sort of idea spreads, the more it erodes publishers' profits - they'll fight back sooner or later (maybe it's already happening?)

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What would they sue them for? Not adequately meeting requirements of niche markets?

If that were an actionable offense, you'd be able to sue half the startups in Silicon Valley.

My thoughts exactly.

A) you can bring a lawsuit for anything - just the threat of tying up small districts might "keep them in line".

B) there may have been some unspoken agreements with earlier decision makers which, while not contractual, might still constitute some good faith issue.

I really think there's probably less a chance of lawsuits specifically, and more likely variable pricing, with "use of free texts" thrown in as an equation that's not shared with anyone but mgt and sales teams.

Typical solution would be to introduce a requirement that teaching materials had to meet some national standard- for the good of the children - the standard would of course be set by the major publishers and the certification wouldn't be available to anyone else.

This situation reminds me of the telcos suing local governments for trying to provide broadband services to their constituents. Never mind the fact they local governments where only doing it because the telcos were neglecting them as they were too small a market to bother with...

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/09/12/2326251/telco-sues-m...

Exactly what I thought. They'll sue because government, through its public employee teachers, are competing with business.

> What would they sue them for? Not adequately meeting requirements of niche markets?

These people would lose their very lucrative business. They'd let their lawyers figure out something to sue for, but the decision to find some way to sue would be based on the prospect of losing sales, not on knowing what legal wrong they had suffered.

Remember SCO? They kept up that lawsuit for about a decade. Good lawyers can find some reason to sue.

I don't know about lawsuits but I do expect increased lobbying of the state legislatures to make it illegal. They certainly won't just take these changes lying down.

I'd also be afraid they'd put lobbying efforts into state legislatures to make home grown text books illegal or set standards that are difficult to meet for teachers and which are easy for big publishers.

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