Textbooks are a crushingly substantial portion of students' costs every semester, and they're getting more expensive every year. With the cost of some individual textbooks surpassing a monthly cable television bill, students are moving to relieve that economic pressure by renting textbooks instead of buying them new or used. The idea of renting textbooks came into vogue a couple of years ago with online rental sources like Chegg.com, CollegeBooksRentals.com, and campus bookrentals.com. Community colleges see rental textbooks as a tool to help their students in a tough economic climate, even if it means taking a hit on the school's bookstore revenues. The number of colleges implementing rental programs has increased substantially in the last couple of years. Although rental programs can substantially benefit community colleges and their students--sometimes even providing help in building physical bookstores on campus--emerging publishing technology is proving to be the proverbial fly in the ointment, as sticky technical and digital rights issues arise.