PROFESSORS
The Semaphore Press publishing
model, in a nutshell
Semaphore Press publishes high quality legal casebooks for
digital download. We base our suggested price on the premise
that students should, and will, pay about $1 per one-hour class
session for the required reading material. We ask students to
pay the suggested price through the Semaphore Press website, or
by sending a check in the mail. But students don't have to pay
to obtain access to the material. They can download it without
paying for it. We hope that most students will pay, because
they recognize the better value proposition that Semaphore
Press offers compared to traditional hardbound-casebook
publishers.
Why would we let
students possibly download full casebooks for free?
We don't encourage free downloading. Our website is designed so
that students affirmatively have to choose not to pay. We can't
deny, however, that a student can download the book without
first paying for it. Why make that possible?
We are as transparent as
possible with students, explaining the Semaphore Press business
model and the risk that we know we face from potential free
riders (please see the Students
page). We believe that law students, in particular, will
understand the value of our publishing model and of the
materials we offer. We trust that they will, with some
encouragement from their professors, pay the suggested price
(or some approximation of it).
We could require
students to pay before they obtain access to the material for
download. We choose not to do that for a variety of reasons.
First, as a company
founded by two law professors who believe deeply in the value
of a high-quality legal education, Semaphore Press wants
students to have reasonable access to high-quality educational
material. Law school is ferociously expensive, and we've heard
stories of talented, ambitious students not buying the required
books because they just can't afford them. These students
borrow a classmate's book some days, read the copy that is on
reserve in the library other days, and some days they simply
can't do the reading. We think that is not the way to go about
obtaining, or providing, an excellent legal education.
Second, we're not
interested in turning law students into copyright infringers,
or future lawyers into potential felons. Digital downloads are
notorious for their ease of unauthorized reproduction and
"sharing." The Copyright Act has very low thresholds for
criminal infringement. See 17 U.S.C. � 506. We just don't want
to go down that path. We would rather let students choose what
to pay and have access to the assigned material. It really is
that simple.
Print copies of Semaphore Press casebooks are available
Over time, some professors and students have expressed to us an
interest in having a convenient way to get a print copy of a Semaphore
Press casebook. As print-on-demand services have improved, we have
adapted. Three of our titles are available, as soft cover
print-on-demand books, from Amazon. We have found the print quality and
binding durability to be quite good. Here are the links to Amazon for
the four books we make available this way:
• Lydia Loren & Joe Miller, Intellectual
Property Law: Cases & Materials
• James Grimmelmann, Internet
Law: Cases & Problems
• Jeffrey Litwak, Interstate Compacts: Cases & Materials
• John Parry, Cases
& Problems in Civil Rights Litigation
The prices vary
because the length of the books vary, and we set the price to cover
Amazon's print cost, Amazon's share of any amount charged above that
print cost, and the base price of all Semaphore Press casebooks ($30).
Indeed, because our price at Amazon includes the $30 base price for the
digital copy, if you purchase a printed copy of one of these three
titles you should feel free to download a digital copy of the book from
Semaphore Press using the "freeride" button at the bottom of the book's
payment page.
Finally, it has always been the case with Semaphore Press casebooks
that, if you want a printed hard copy of a book after downloading a
digital copy from Semaphore Press, you can print a personal copy for
yourself on your printer. There are no printing restrictions or other
digital rights management that will prevent you from doing that.
Similarly, you can take your digital copy to a copyshop like
FedEx/Kinko's that offers multiple binding methods (see, e.g.,
FedEx/Kinko's binding options). You have our permission to print and
bind a personal copy of your downloaded book. You'll want to
bring a copy of this explanatory letter we've created and provide it to
the copyshop to address the copyshop's potential copyright concerns.
Interested in
adopting a Semaphore Press book for your course?
We welcome new adoptions of our casebooks or parts of our
casebooks. If you would like to consider one of our books for
use in a course you are teaching, we welcome your use of the
“free rider” option to access a review copy. Once
you decide to adopt the book, we ask that you point your
students to our home page, www.semaphorepress.com, where they can
quickly navigate to the page where they can download the book
you've adopted. Please do not direct them to the internal pages
of our website, or to the specific page for downloading the
particular book you are assigning. It is important that
students have an opportunity to understand the value
proposition offered by Semaphore Press, and starting at the
home page is the best way to do that.
We ask that you complete
two steps when you assign one of our books (or parts of one of
our books) for a course:
Step 1.
Please send an email to adoptions@semaphorepress.com
with the following information:
(a) your name and name
of your school
(b) name of the book
(c) the course and the number of
credit hours for the course
(d) approximate number of class
sessions in which material from the Semaphore Press book will
be used
(e) enrollment or expected
enrollment
This email will help us
track our adoptions and assess whether our business model is
working. We promise that we won't use your information to spam
you, and that we won't share your information with anyone else.
Step 2. Please include one
of the two following paragraphs, as appropriate, in the
syllabus or assignment sheet that you provide to your students,
filling in the blanks accordingly.
For Full Book adoptions:
Required text: <author(s)>, <title>, (Semaphore
Press)
This required text is available for download only at www.semaphorepress.com. Semaphore Press
uses a publishing model different from the traditional law
school casebook publishers. I encourage you to read about
Semaphore Press's publishing approach on its website. This
book has a suggested price of $30. I urge you to pay the
suggested retail price in order to keep high-quality legal
educational material available at reasonable prices.
(If this is a title for which Semaphore Press offers a print option through Amazon, you could consider adding the following:
If you prefer, the publisher does offer a print version of this book
through Amazon at a higher price. Search for the author and title on
Amazon and you will find the current edition for print-on-demand.)
For Partial Book Adoption:
Required text: , <author(s)>, <title>, (Semaphore
Press)
This required text is available for download only at www.semaphorepress.com. Semaphore Press
uses a publishing model different from the traditional law
school casebook publishers. I encourage you to read about
Semaphore Press's publishing approach on its website. This
publisher suggests that a student pay $1 for each class
session in which Semaphore Press material is the assigned
reading for the session. We will be using material from this
book for [ X ] class sessions. Therefore, I urge you to pay $
[ X ] as the suggested retail price in order to keep
high-quality legal educational materials available at
reasonable prices.
Interested in
Publishing Your Book With Semaphore Press?
We are interested in publishing new titles. As you can see, we
approach the business of casebook publishing a bit differently
than the traditional publishers. This includes our agreements
with authors. We offer a royalty rate that is significantly
above the standard royalty offered by traditional hard-copy
casebook publishers. Recognizing that the royalty will vary
based on payment rates, we do not ask for an assignment of
copyright in your work. Instead, we enter into a five-year
publishing agreement. At the end of those five years, both the
author(s) and Semaphore Press can revisit whether it makes
sense to continue publishing the book through this model.
Either party can walk away, or enter into a new agreement, at
that time.
Some aspects of a
traditional casebook publisher remain the same at Semaphore
Press. For example, we fully vet the proposals we receive to
determine the market viability of the book and the likely level
of adoptions. We also engage copy editing of text submitted,
including author review of proposed changes and adherence to
publishing deadlines worked out with authors.
If you have a proposal
you would like us to review, please send an email to proposals@semaphorepress.com.
Have a Comment
to Share With Semaphore Press?
What do you think of the Semaphore Press publishing model? We
welcome your feedback, comments, and suggestions.
Email us: feedback@semaphorepress.com
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