OPINION: Summoning Students Doesn't Solve the Problem – It Just Hides it Behind Fear

This is an opinion piece, the views expressed in the column are the writer’s own. 

Textbooks are a huge expense for financially pressured students. Therefore, the Student Council believes that the Danish Rights Alliance's new announcement to step up efforts to issue fines to students who illegally share textbooks is a scare campaign. The Danish Rights Alliance points out that 57 percent of students have shared books online. According to a study from the Danish Chamber of Commerce, digital piracy is a problem across age groups, affecting many other media than just digital textbooks. Therefore, we in the Student Council believe that it’s unnecessarily harsh to pursue targeted cases against students in order to send a clearer signal, as Maria Fredenslund, director of the Danish Rights Alliance, says in an article in Omnibus. It's like kicking someone who is already down. And that doesn't solve the problem.

Students Risk Summons and Lawsuits by Illegally Sharing Study Books

Focus on the problem rather than the symptom

Being a student is expensive. Books for an entire semester can cost several thousand DKK according to Saxo's syllabus lists. In addition, there are programs and licenses that require user payment. When you focus on sharing copied textbooks, you are trying to treat a symptom rather than solve the problem. Students are not opting out of buying the books because they want to break the law, but because there’s a sharp prioritisation of funds in a tight economy. Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that copyright must be respected, but it points to a structural challenge where financial insecurity can push students to seek alternative solutions. This economic insecurity fuels digital piracy. It’s not in itself problematic that not everything at the university is free, but when there’s inflation in the number of textbooks and licenses that need to be purchased, the principle of free and equal access is put to the test.

Frequent updates prevent reselling

It’s problematic that there’s a financial incentive to continuously update textbooks because it motivates professors and publishers to change the structure or make small, often insignificant adjustments, solely because it provides a financial return. This prevents students from reselling books they no longer need and makes the books less sustainable, as they cannot be reused unless professors spend extra time ensuring that syllabus lists include previous versions.

When universities design teaching schedule, they have a responsibility to deliver high-quality, research-based education. However, considerations of financial accessibility, reuse of books and utilisation of the universities' many available licenses must also weigh heavily. When the university generates a profit year after year, some of these funds could be advantageously invested in supporting the libraries, financing joint book licenses, and ensuring a critical review of syllabus lists. Study books must be quality assured and must be reusable more than once, so that they are fully utilised throughout one's studies at the university.

Scare campaign doesn't work

When the Danish Rights Alliance runs scare campaigns to stop the illegal sharing of study books, they want to change a trend in society by targeting some of those who have the least. This fuels issues of financial pressure and the resulting distress that is already prevalent among students. The Student Council doesn’t see it as a solution to hit some students financially to scare the rest into compliance.

Cultural change doesn’t happen through fear, not in this case either.

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.