PADI Hologram

Check Christi's post on page 3 of that thread:
"Families - One book per household is ok as long as they have matching last names/residences. Of course they would prefer each person to have their own book...they reliaze this isn't always going to be practical."

Thanks, Mark! I missed that. Does that mean same houshold or same last name? Otherwise, my cousin in Denver, who kept her maiden name, and her husband must buy two books because theri last names are not the same. And, my stepson, who has a different last name than my wife and me, has to buy a new book to get his OW certificate with the gift certificate we gave him for Christmas.

Surely there must be some better way for PADI to ensure their steady stream of cashflow without raising the ire of previously satisfied customers.

i think if you guys are a family unit and live in the same place, you'll be ok

the enforcement of this issue will be at the local dive shop level, so that's where you say "hey, we're a family, we get to use one book"

if they give you any trouble, then you know what kind of dive shop you're dealing with

I think you will find that PADI believes that in some locations, there is a considerable amount of copyright violation. This is simply thier method of asssuring that the student used "legal" training materials. Actually, it is a pretty inventive way of doine it, though it does need to be implemented acrosss the board or not at all. I was told that some shops do hundreds and hundreds of certifications, but only purchase dozens of student kits. I don't think they are worried about sharing training materials. Their concern is violation of their property rights with regard to copyright (as in copying the book and the quizzies after each chapter). In our store, we require a set of books for each student. We consider it a violation of their copyright to photocopy anything in the book, including the quizzies.

Phil Ellis

Personally, I think the whole hologram thing is BS. Its merely another method to ensure PADI gets as much money for materials as the can.

That said, Phil is right. It IS illegal to photocopy quizzes/knowledge reviews without PADI's consent. This is before the hologram stuff. Unless PADI changes thier stance on that to allow copies, even the same house shared book arguements lose. Right, wrong doesn't matter.

My opinion, PADI should sell the books as books and then sell the individual exams/quizzes/worksheets as a required part of the course for each student. Solves the problems mentioned and will never be adopted.

ianw2:

I was just reading the thread on certification problems at http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=171660title=

I had not heard about this development.

I’m rather glad that Laura and I got through OW and AOW before this went into effect. Since we are husband and wife living in the same household, taking the same classes, I assumed that we were perfectly within our rights to purchase only one materials pack. Apparently our LDS did, too. From what the thread on cert problems seems to be sharing, PADI considers us as criminals bootlegging off each others course materials.

I’m thinking that there is more to this or certain allowable exceptions (or PADI is about to jeopardize their husband/wife business).

Does anyone have further info?

Click to expand...

PADI has always allowed multiple use of their CD-ROM packets - 4 students per CD-ROM. I don't know how that's changed since the one book per household rule. I'd guess one CD-ROM per household. However, once the hologram hits the US (if it does), I don't know what will happen. Instructors have had the hologram thing for a while, but only for one of the books required. The instructor manual and most other books don't have the hologram. PADI may do something similar.

Personally, I like in_cavediver's suggestion of separate knowledge reviews.

Interesting, I had never thought about it, I always assumed sharing books was not allowed. I got certified a few months back, my dad is looking to do it sometime next summer. Is he allowed then to use the same book as I did? I complete all the quizzes, but when I turned in the ones I had to tear out of the book, I made copies of them so I could keep them around incase I ever wanted to look over them again. The dive shop he'd go through is a bit of a pain though, they'll probably throw up their hands and say it's not allowed to share books, even if it is allowed. Is there a simple explanation of it from PADI? He'd need to take the quizzes and all I'm sure, but I could put whiteout over my answers so he couldn't cheat. He wouldn't mind buying it all again I'm sure but why rebuy the manual if he doesn't need to? I've read it multiple times (mildly OCD and I love to read....) so he could keep it for all I care.