Nikhil G. Abraham, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, was standing in line at the campus bookstore last fall when he realized he was about to pay for something he’d already bought: the readings in his course pack.
Most of the articles in the photocopied collection of readings were available through a database of journals the university’s library already subscribed to, or could be found on a free public Web site.
Mr. Abraham shared the insight with a fellow graduate student, Matthew E. Kopko, and a business idea was born: Sibylus, a cheaper, online alternative to printed course packs.
Their plan got a recent stamp of approval from the university’s New Venture Challenge, a business-plan competition, when they won second place last week, and with it an $18,000 prize.
“Historically that puts them in pretty good company,” says Steven N. Kaplan, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance who teaches a course in which students work on their business plans for the competition. Recent first- and second-place winners have raised millions of dollars in outside capital to support their ideas, he says.
The students—who are both studying business and law—started a pilot program this spring in several classes at Chicago’s business school, and they hope to use the winnings from the competition to help them further develop the site and expand to other campuses next fall.
But from the start, they had a nagging question: Was their idea legal?
For an answer, they met with a number of professors, the university’s general counsel, and lawyers at several firms in Chicago. The verdict was that their plan seemed within the bounds of copyright law. “Lawyers being what they are, no one is going to put anything down in writing, but the reaction has been positive,” Mr. Abraham says.
For precedent, they turned to a case brought against Google by the pornographic magazine Perfect 10, which tried to block Google from linking to thumbnails from the Perfect 10 site for Google image searches. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found mostly in Google’s favor, arguing that Google’s use seemed to fall under the doctrine of fair use.
Most of the material for the online course packs is actually not on the site itself, rather, Sibylus “hosts” copyrighted material by linking to sites that students already can access. For readings not already available, Mr. Abraham and Mr. Kopko negotiate rights using the Web site copyright.com.
The online course packs aren’t free, but they are cheaper than the print versions—roughly 50 percent to 80 percent less, the students say. Part of the charge covers copyright fees and the work that goes into assembling each online pack.
The two graduate students have a team of six people working in the United States on designing the site and obtaining the materials, as well as workers in India that take reading lists, in whatever format they come, and recode them in a standard format.
The system gives professors who choose to share their syllabi the chance to compare their reading lists with other participating professors teaching similar courses, so they can get ideas for future reading materials. That aspect is particularly attractive to M. Todd Henderson, a professor of law at Chicago, who the pair consulted about their plan. He says he typically spends about five to 10 hours each week keeping up with material related to the courses he teaches and would welcome the option to essentially crowdsource those updates. “It’s dynamic,” he says. “I don’t have to spend any time updating my syllabus.”
Mr. Abraham and Mr. Kopko have also added a social-networking component for students, who can chat with their classmates and “like” or “dislike” individual readings, à la Facebook.
Mr. Henderson, who worked for several years at the consulting firm McKinsey and Company before coming to Chicago, says he regularly consults with law students who have business plans, and he is particularly impressed with the course-pack project. “These guys are the real deal,” he says. “If I had money to invest in start-ups, I would invest.”
Before the students expand, though, they want to change the service’s name. Friends pointed out that Sibylus sounds like a sexually transmitted disease.
They are trying to turn the need for rebranding into a promotional opportunity. The duo asked students to vote for their business in a people’s choice awards contest, promising to donate the $1,000 prize to charity if the business won. It did, and the cash will go to their chosen cause: the Howard Brown Health Center, to promote awareness about sexually transmitted diseases.
Meanwhile, Mr. Abraham and Mr. Kopko are still working on a new name, testing some options with focus groups. A winner hasn’t emerged yet.
