Textbook prices have risen three-fold since 1987, according to this article in the Birmingham News. Read it. The federal government is now getting involved, with legislation to curtail bundling by textbook publishers, a tactic that helped them counter losses due to the burgeoning Internet resale market. The article even notes the practice of scanning text pages and posting them to Pirate Bay.

Violating bundling violates the property rights of the publishers, notwithstanding the immense cost to students that bundling entails. But attacking bundling does not solve the industry's problems with respect to the Internet. If bundling becomes forbidden, what other ways might textbook publishers respond to the Internet threat?