Reasoning for LSAC ban on PDFs?

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• 1 Like

  c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2398 karma

  The reasoning is that too many exams were being distributed illegally and in violation of their copyright. While there is no action that can completely eliminate the problem, you can see how doing away with the most transferable form of the tests is a logical approach to the issue. Of course, one may argue that, like the music industry experienced, an inability to get the tests for free in digital form will only further incentivize them being downloaded illegally. Maybe an iTunes for PTs is in development?
• Accounts Playable Live Sage ⭐

  August 2015 edited August 2015 3107 karma

  That's what I figured the more I thought about it @c.janson35
  
  The LSAC must have been really hurting from these illegal downloads. Why enforce the copyright if you don't gain anything from enforcement? I wonder how they valued the "lost" licensing fees compared to the benefits of the enforcement. I'd also be curious how this will affect future testing numbers. It's going to be hard to probably definitively prove (since the test numbers are endogenous), but I would guess that the effect of the tightening of the enforcement is going to be a net negative for the LSAC. Who knows though.
• Matt1234567 Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 1294 karma

  It must have been really detrimental for their pockets because I would assume that they make so much already with all the licensing fees and the fee for administering the exam. All I know is that this will negatively affect students and make studying much harder.
• 2 Likes

  Accounts Playable Live Sage ⭐

  August 2015 edited August 2015 3107 karma

  @Matt1234567
  
  Even more important, this hurts those that actually want to study more so than those that don't want to study. At the extremes, the person that isn't going to study, walk in, and get their score was never going to purchase prep materials anyway. The LSAC has disproportionally increased the search costs on the people that want to increase their score/study (which affects their cost benefit in taking the exam). As a result, fewer studious, hard working students will probably take the exam--those that would make "better" lawyers on average in the first place.
  
  This move from the LSAC is just another typical one in an industry with a government protected monopoly...
• Matt1234567 Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 1294 karma

  @"Accounts Playable" said:
  This move from the LSAC is just another typical one in an industry with a government protected monopoly...
  

  This is so true. At this point, LSAC can pretty much do anything short of breaking the law and get away with it.
• c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2398 karma

  "As a result, fewer studious, hard working students will probably take the exam--those that would make "better" lawyers on average in the first place."
  
  I disagree with you here. I think that the studious, hard-working students are those who are most apt to recognize the small investment in study materials will pay off in the long run. And it's not like LSAC is no longer providing tests; the booklets of tests are available for purchase at a pretty low cost to students. The only thing that the policy harms is convenience, but if you were LSAC and your intellectually property were getting abused, why wouldn't you seek to put a stop to this action?
• Accounts Playable Live Sage ⭐

  August 2015 edited August 2015 3107 karma

  @c.janson35
  
  I see what you are saying here, but I disagree. What I meant in my extremism example is to really convey the marginal student. It is true that the most studious students would probably still seek out prep materials. However, the marginal student maybe would not (depending on how they value their expected benefit for attending law school compared the additional increase in the search cost/convenience cost). A good counter to that would be "So what, there are too many lawyers anyway." Nevertheless, the effect of the LSAC's ban puts pressure on the margin the wrong way. You shouldn't increase the search costs on those that have a higher chance of succeeding in law school/succeeding in law. You should make it more difficult for people who will have a propensity to fail at law. The increase in the administration fee better does that, which is why I think it was better policy; the LSAC doesn't care about public policy (nor should it), though. However, the government protection of its monopoly has a negative effect for the lawyer job market for the reasons above.
  
  Additionally, I don't agree with your assessment of copyright enforcement. The LSAC was laxer one year ago in its copyright enforcement strategy than today (by allowing PDFs). They changed their minds because they probably figured that it was costing them money. In other words, just because you have an intellectual property right claim and that claim is abused, it shouldn't be a sufficient reason for the LSAC to act since there are cost considerations as well. Now, the LSAC has burdened itself with additional enforcement costs that it did not have one year ago (by making sure that the copyright is not being infringed, potential court actions, etc.). Someone at the LSAC probably crunched the numbers and discovered that the benefit of stopping the copyright abuse outweighed the enforcement cost, and that is why they acted.
• c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2398 karma

  Well, you flipped your argument from it being about the hardworking, studious student to one in which you argue for the marginal student. I don't see how these marginal students have a higher chance of succeeding in law school, as you stated, and again, the increase of cost is at most a few dollars as the hardcopy test booklets are available for the same price (nearly) as the PDF booklets. There's no real increase in the search costs here, so I'm confused about your point of contention. What is lost is the convenience of having all of them easily accessible anywhere you go, which is what PDFs afford. But this is merely an inconvenience, not a barrier to entry. I think you are creating a very broad hypothetical increase in search costs when it exists for only a minority of the tests--the very early ones, for example. Even so, buying these as PDFs was still going to run you $40-$60 when their relevance to the test in its current iteration is questionable anyway.
  
  I'm also confused at your response to the copyright analysis. We are largely saying the same thing, if only different in degree as you include slightly more nuance that may or may not be true. There are two considerations I can see for deciding to protect their intellectual property.
  
  First is cost, as you mentioned, and if someone crunched the numbers and found out that they were losing money through the pirating of tests, then it's hard to see why they wouldn't choose to put a stop to this--especially when PDFs are only a convenience for students and test prep companies.
  
  Second is principle. The intellectual property that these tests contain is theirs and solely theirs. If they believe that something they own is being stolen from them, and they wish to put a stop to this illegality, then the decision to cut off the source of the illegality is a reasonable one. True, it may have the unintended consequence of worsening the problem by encouraging the illegal transfer of test material, but the route they chose was one that can be logically understood. Whether it is a large corporation or a small business is beside the point, and framing LSAC as The Big Bad is an just an emotional appeal. If someone believes property that they own, that they paid to research and develop, is being stolen, then it's their right to try to protect their property and investment. In this light, it wouldn't be necessary for LSAC or anyone to be really hurting monetarily by the illegal transfer of property, only that they are angered or bothered that the IP they own is being abused.
  
  In any case, I suspect in the future that LSAC will themselves offer the option of buying PDFs once it can be ensured that they can't be easily re-distributed (or once a security method can be applied so that re-distribution is very unlikely). There's no way that can result in perfect enforcement, but to knock them for trying seems disingenuous.
  
• Accounts Playable Live Sage ⭐

  August 2015 3107 karma

  @c.janson35
  
  I don't really see how I flipped my argument (I was lazy with some wording I admit though). I am not saying that not having PDFs is going to be the end all/absolute reason that someone is not going to attend law school. I am instead arguing that on the margin, it creates a higher disincentive (whether this is material or not depends on individual cases) . Sure, it is probably minor inconvenience, but still is an increase in cost. I think the marginal effect (which what I probably should have initially said in my post instead of marginal student) is different for different types of students. That was what I was truly trying to say.
  
  Also, I am in agreement with most of what you say about copyright protection, except partially with the second principle. I agree think their action is reasonable, but not necessarily logically understood (I am going to equate "logically understood" with "rational" for the rest of the post). They protected their IP by successfully getting a copyright claim, and it is their right to enforce it as they so choose (this is why it is reasonable for them to do what they did). Nevertheless, this doesn't mean that the action was rational. The research and development of the tests is a sunk cost to the LSAC, and should be disregarded in the enforcement decision making about the PDF enforcement. The only things that should be considered in deciding to actually enforce a claim (from a firm perspective), is the expected future benefits of enforcement vs. expected costs of enforcement. The LSAC (hopefully) understood this and acted as such.
  
  Additionally, I wasn't making an emotional appeal against the LSAC. They do have every right to limit PDFs since it is their IP, and they certainly have every right to do whatever they want with it. I was more commenting on the nature of the industry as a whole and the market conditions as a whole that has led to the LSAC monopoly. I view the market in which the LSAC operates in as a failure/bad. The LSAC is just reacting strategically to its best advantage. I didn't mean to imply that the LSAC is a big, evil company, to the contrary, I somewhat admire them for exploiting their market opportunity. I just don't agree with their strategy. The LSAC as a ton more information than I do, so there is a very good chance I am wrong.
  
  Your last paragraph I think is absolutely true. I think it is the reason why the LSAC is trying to gobble up the tests from the Internet.
• 3 Likes

  nye8870 Alum ⭐

  August 2015 1749 karma

  Is this a resolve reconcile question? Which PT?
• Accounts Playable Live Sage ⭐

  August 2015 3107 karma

  @nye8870
  
  Haha. This is hell of a lot more fun than doing LR questions! Truly, this discussion is awesome. It went from my shower thoughts all they way to economics of IP enforcement.
• ddakjiking Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2116 karma

  I skimmed over the thread and will skip the copyright stuff but in my experience, I think the ban will probably most affect the "dedicated" of students with minimal effect to the average studier. Aside from the TLS community, PDF PT's (i.e Cambridge) weren't really pushed often on reddit or even on 7Sage. Just looking at #lsat on instagram and chatting with multiple friends studying for the LSAT, they end up searching "LSAT" on amazon and find the 10 PT books. It's only after I told them about Cambridge they discovered the online world of "PT 1-38 drilling" and "39-7x PT'ing" via Cambridge Packets.
• c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2398 karma

  Yea, the largest loss is in the loss of the drilling packers for 1-38 or whatever it was, which I didn't fully consider in my above posts. My point was that you can still get most of these tests in the booklets and can just run through them for drilling, categorizing by question type and progressing that way (and may even be cheaper because you would get all of the sections in the books rather than just LR, but I honestly have know idea how much it would be to buy 1-38 drilling packets of LR, RC, and LG compared to just buying the test booklets as a whole), so the loss is minimal.
  
  Either way, fun conversation, and even for nothing else, that it made @nye8870's comment possible makes the conversation a net gain for mankind...or at least LSATkind.
• nye8870 Alum ⭐

  August 2015 1749 karma

  @c.janson35 @"Accounts Playable" I can be a punk sometimes...heh heh! I liked the convo too. This is a touchy subject though, so I decided to just watch.
• 1 Like

  Pacifico Alum Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 8021 karma

  Also, LSAT performance has no correlation to anything beyond 1L performance so the whole good lawyers thing is fallacious. There are plenty of great lawyers who sucked in school and/or went to shit schools and there are plenty of shit lawyers who did well in school and/or went to great schools. Law school is not the real world and those that excel in the former do not always excel in the latter and vice versa.
• 1 Like

  c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  August 2015 2398 karma

  Good point, @Pacifico. This is from a new study done not too long ago:
  
  "T]he magnitude of the predictive power of LSAT is modest compared to how heavily schools weight LSAT scores. A 6-point LSAT difference is enough to make a dispositive difference in where one attends law school and whether one receives a six-figure scholarship – but even that large an LSAT gap really predicts only a modest 0.1 difference in LGPA…"
  
  They did note that it's more predictive of first year grades. Here's more, if anyone is interested:
  
  http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-LB-51704
  
  There's this too, which is cool!
  
  "But a new research paper says the very act of studying for the law school entrance exam actually alters your brain structure – and could make you smarter.
  Intensive study for the Law School Admission Test reinforces circuits in the brain and can bridge the gap between the right and left hemispheres, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley Department of Psychology and U.C.’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, the National Law Journal reported."
  
  http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-LB-43339