Re: copyright under stress

On 6/21/2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
>
> The Stanford economist Roger Norr has pointed out that if the
> scholarly journals that are peer-reviewed could be easily copied,
> then the journals might not have resources to maintain their
> high quality, considering the high pre-production costs. The ease
> of copying (in a state of no "scarcity") might tend to drive out
> the good in favor of the cheap-to-produce. But his point only
> raises the question whether or not the present business model
> of producing these journals is efficient, given the inefficiencies
> of distribution. Perhaps the peer review system needs some better
> means of funding than purely royalties from distribution. In such
> cases, one might imagine that it is similar to the farmers trying
> to get government relief. Most likely farmers, consumers, and
> the government would all like to have a stable, efficient system,
> instead of allowing prices to boom and bust, especially for goods
> that are necessary to life, as for example food. So perhaps
> electronic journals should have some government funding so as
> to relieve the burden on libraries, and thereby "promote the
> progress of science and the useful arts."

I have not read Mr. Norr's piece, but I have to say that it is unclear to me just what these high pre-publication costs might be. They certainly are not for the cost of the referees or the editors who generally work for no compensation and often, though certainly not always, have their expenses born by their employers, not the journal. The scholarly journal may, or may not, provide funds to the unpaid academic editor for travel and postage, but rarely are these pre-publication charges material in the costs of production. If the exchanges are done electronically there are not even postage costs. Any fool can make money running an academic journal if he can get the libraries to buy it, or their users to demand it. That's why there are so many of them. I don't think that it would be possible to devise a less costly peer review system than now exists, since all the high cost input is on a volunteer basis.

BRB Bert R. Boyce, Professor & Dean
School of Library & Information Science
Louisiana State University
267 Coates Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803

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     I Received on Thu Jun 22 2000 - 13:27:26 GMT