HMM: Tennessee Bill Would Ban Faculty Authors From Earning Royalties (‘Kickbacks’) on Books Assigned to Their Students. I assign my space law casebook in my space law seminar, but that’s not a conflict of interest because . . . there really isn’t another book. I think it earns me about ten bucks for the class. I rebate my royalties by buying the students beer, but it would be more than ten bucks worth of trouble to figure out how not to get the money in the first place. Perhaps for people with really big classes, there’s a greater potential for conflicts, but I’m not seeing it. . . .