Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

On 15 Sep 1998, Karsten M. Self <kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
> >
> > Maybe the law will abandon fair use and terms one day in an
> > effort to bring order and restore health to the dissemination
> > of research. The proliferation of "library photocopying" as a
> > fair use has certainly devestated the market for authorized
> > publication, clearly demonstrated by a variety of statistics.
> > PHYSICAL REVIEW, called by its publishers the 'premier' journal
> > in physics, sells half the number of copies today that it did
> > 30 years ago -- even though the number of institutions and the
> > number of scientists has substantially increased!
>
> Consider the possibility that photocopying of articles from a central
> repository (the library) is perhaps a better means of dissemination
> than publication and distribution of whole journals to individual
> faculty members. Though subscription revenues may fall, so to do
> subscription maintenance, printing, and distribution costs.

Yes and because most costs of journals are fixed, their prices rise sharply as subscriptions are canceled; that makes everyone unhappy.

In the mid-1960s, when dissemination was high on the national agenda, library "duplicate" subscriptions circulated across researchers' desks. Many photocopies were taken for 'personal' libraries and little harm was done. After President Johnson declared his retirement and Sen Mansfield passed an amendment restricting defense-sponsored research, universities stopped the duplicates and even held up paying publishers' page charges.

> The Internet is an extension of this principle -- the "central
> repository" becomes a network of linked repositories, "photocopying"
> is web-browsing (the intermediary copies required, and copyright
> implications, are legion), and costs are reduced to roughly $2/GB,
> as quoted somewhere recently.

Fine. Let the publishers control their investment and keep dissemination alive. Encourage them to invest in reviews and in reference works as well as primary research reports.

> The publishing industry was created by the ability to cheaply reproduce
> works. Distribution remained expensive until the electronic era. We
> may be entering a period in which those who have something to say as
> a result of their work, say it, without the benefit of a middleman.
> Those who's work is to say things may find the wages falling due to the
> difficulty in demanding payment. I'm not saying this is a good or bad
> thing, just that it's the pragmatic reality.

I am not convinced electronic dissemination is not expensive. The only profits are being taken by the hardware guys and the phone companies. Everything else appears to be heavily subsidized and/or highly speculative. The success stories always leave out the financial picture. The only aim of AAU initiatives on copyright is to further cut the cost of their libraries.

> Given the parallel discussion of compensation (and copyright) for
> scientific journal articles, does it make a tremendous difference
> whether articles are "published" in paper form by a journal, or printed
> on an as-needed basis off the internet? Peer review is a valuable
> service, as are editorial and stylistic standards, but it seems to me
> that the various professional societies might be able to provide these
> services at greatly reduced cost, through membership dues and grants,
> as compared to print publication and distribution.

It makes a difference that they are reviewed and disseminated in as many ways as possible. Electronic is good for some, paper is less expensive both to libraries and to most readers. In fact all the studies have indicated that readers want to print out anything useful even if they can have it on disk or downloaded to their hard drive. Trials without a printer have been discouraging.

Some association publishers provide omnibus journals at a lower price per production unit, not counting the cost to the user of needing a fairly expensive database first to find anything. They lag behind commercial publishers in providing niche journals that provide additional service tailored to small audiences. They also have been criticized sharply for high prices to libraries while members enjoy deep discounts. No association that I know of runs its publishing program in the red on purpose. I might add that commercial publishers seem to provide services via multinational offices while the associations mostly confine their service to members and local customers.

> I see libraries as serving a very important archival purpose. This
> might be based on print copies of works, or electronic, on suitably
> durable media. The principle problem here is that electronic storage
> formats have historically been highly variable over time -- while it
> is easy to pick up and read a 40 year old journal, accessing
> information from computer storage media of 40 years ago would require
> museum-grade equipment. Even the past twenty years have seen the rise
> and fall of 8" floppies, 5.25" floopies, 3.5"..., ZIP and Jaz drives,
> CD-ROM, 9" tape, 3480/3490 carts, DDS (in various standards), and MO.
> Punchcards, steel tape, and fiche, anyone?

Yes, technical obsolescence is a major problem and cost. Elsevier's TULIP project had to overhaul its production as the WWW technology as introduced. There are also no agreed standards. Math people like TeX. Others like HTML and PDF which followed PostScript? You can't index PostScript, so you need a text file. Etc., etc.

> ...which is rather distant from the original topic of copyright, but
> does speak to public access and "promoting science & the useful
> arts"....
 

Copyright, as some provost recently said, is the linchpin of the system. Actually, it is the linchpin that secures investments in reproduction rights and promotes dissemination. When such investments are clouded by instability, there is bound to be trouble.

Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY <70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Thu Sep 17 1998 - 02:00:39 GMT