$30.06
-0.28 (-0.92%)
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (MHP)
CAPS Rating:
The Company is a global information services provider serving the financial services, education and business information markets with a wide range of information products and services.
RSS Headlines
Fool UK
Recs
Textbook publisher. Will be hurt by students scanning, uploading, and downloading their textbooks online (such as from Textbook Torrents) as well as an increasing move to open courseware (such as MIT's OpenCourseWare). Will be hurt in the long run.
Shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone!
I'm a college student and I have never known one student to download a text from bit torrent, and I use bit torrent myself. People fork out money for education because they value it, and you need to be able to take your book to class. I think a bear argument could be made against this company but this is not it.
Recent (2008-07-27) NYTimes article covering this emerging trend: "First It Was Song Downloads. Now It’s Organic Chemistry."http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/technology/27digi.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=sloginWhile I haven't downloaded textbooks myself, I've known several students that have and expect more students to illegally copy textbooks as publishers move online publishing and high-speed electronic copiers become affordable. Textbook Torrents has since been shutdown (indicating that publishers see a real threat), and the founder of Pirate Bay has been seeing higher ebook download volume recently. Many classes, at least in my experience, do not require taking the book to class, and even if the book is required, a laptop or ebook reader would suffice in most cases. Illegally copied college e-textbooks will be the new MP3s.