Re: IP law and society (was "protecting inventions")

Louise Szente <lszente[_at_]tsamail.trsa.ac.za> writes:
>
> In a developing country we are supposedly doing our utmost to uplift
> and educate the community. By doing so we need to supply the most
> current and correct information. To get this information we need to
> consult articles in learned journals. To pay for copying these
> articles is way beyond our means, some times up to $2500.00 to to
> multiple copies of articles. This means that our students do not have
> access to well researched facts but have to depend on surmises.

Most editors of academic journals and conference proceedings do not receive a great financial benefit (if any) from their task. Most reviewers of academic journal articles and conference papers (if they are peer reviewed) do not receive a financial benefit from their task. The major financial burden is the cost of printing and distribution of the papers and the slice for the publisher. The main reason why we still use paper journals is because of the filtering process that traditional publication provides. We expect certain journals and conferences to accept only papers of a particular subject matter and standard.

There is a cheap and easy solution. Since most authors and readers of academic works have access to the Internet as faculty, the obvious solution is to abandon traditional paper journals and establish high quality competing electronic journals. The same people could do the filtering and, since they often do that for free now, the only additional cost would be providing a web server on which to place the material and many law schools are already providing such a service for other material. This has the advantage of returning control of the publication process to academics and achieves the end of unfettered disemination of learning far more effectively than any paper publication can particularly since most academic institutions provide Internet access to students and faculty as a matter of course.

The process of switching academic publication from paper to on-line is already taking place (more quickly in some areas than others). The switch is inevitable though as libraries drop paper publications because they become too expensive, publishers drop them because they are no longer profitable and electronic journals become more prestigious and recognized by faculty `brownie point' counters. The real crux will come when prestigious paper journals switch to on-line delivery either concurrently or exclusively. In the area of law, faculty sponsored journals are likely to be first to do this as they have the most freedom to forego profits for the greater good of learning.

Commercial publishers are quite rightly in it for the money and there is no money in providing a free on-line journal in their current format (in-line advertising might make this more profitable particularly for law journals as academia is not a highly sort-after market demographic).

The problem is solved, it just needs more of the right people to support the solution.

Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B. (Melb)        | Multimedia Database Systems, RMIT  |
tja[_at_]mds.rmit.edu.au  B.Sc.(Hons Melb) | 723 Swanston St    -----------------
Tel: +61 3 9282 2487   Fax: ..2490    | Carlton 3053       |  simul iustus 
    http://www.mds.rmit.edu.au/People/Tja/tja.html         |   et peccator