Re: copyright expiration as a spur to creativity

On Tue, Sep 29, 1998, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 27 Sep 1998, Bernard Katz <bkatz[_at_]uoguelph.ca> wrote:
> >
> > I would suggest that there is a distinct difference between *journal*
> > publication in the humanities, social sciences and sciences than there
> > is in other areas of periodical publication -- I mean theat scholars
> >
> > and researchers would like the widest possible dissemination of their
> > papers and couldn't care the least about other folks copying them. In
> > fact they are happy to have this happen! But the distribution system
> > for STM&S (scientific, technical, medical & scholarly) journals has
> > become more and more limited to fewer and fewer commercial publishers
> > (at least in the STM fields).
>
> I agree. Robert K. Merton established pretty well that recognition
> is a major motivation for all that a scientist does. One major step
> in recognition, however, is attracting the investment of a publisher
> who will elevate a researcher and his/her work. "Dissemination"
> means "recognition" and not just producing and distributing. Without
> copyright as the foundation for publication, including investments
> made by nonprofit associations, I suggest no good can come ....
>
> > So why not simply move away from paper dissemination and use the
> > internet - with the same checks and balances of peer review, etc.?
> > Indeed this has already started to happen and will continue apace.
> > Some fields of study are more advanced (eg. mathematics) than others,
> > but the increases in cost of paper journals -- WHATEVER the cause --
> > together with restrictions on library aquisition increases (here I
> > do agree with Mr. Henderson) has resulted in a real crisis. Mr.
> > Henderson has already agreed that photocopying "in house" (ie. inside
> > the libraries) is not what he sees as the base culprit -- it's the
> > Interlibrary Loan photocopying that he earmarks as no.1 bad activity
> > w.r.t. the photocopy machine.
> >
> > Well, I suggest that paper publishing will go the way of the dodo well
> > before copyright law drops all the "free" copying that comes with fair
> > use (or fair dealing in jurisdictions other than the U.S. - in those
> > countries whose copyright law derives from that of the U.K., that is).
> > As Karsten Self indicated, scholars really do not need the commercial
> > publishers who have been cranking up the costs (again, for whatever
> > reasons). The *authors* of the STM&S papers WANT the dissemination to
> > be as widespread and freely available as possible.
> >
> > Would Mr. Henderson agree that for these authors' works there is every
> > reason to move away from paper and get into e-publishing with very free
> > and open use of the texts, once they are refereed? Shouldn't the
> > desire of these authors for this type of dissemination be honoured?
>
> Believe me I have no problem with the technology per se. To paraphrase
> one of my favorite actors, "technology doesn't kill publishing, people
> kill publishing." The universities that provide the core market for
> research publishers jumped the gun and choked the market 30 years
> before the economies seen in electronic publishing were within reach.
>
> I doubt most publishers would fuss about photocopying if it were not
> closely associated with the massive cancellation of subscriptions.
>
> Even before passage of the current copyright act, but well after the
> wide availability of plain paper Xerox photocopiers, Fry and White
> observed that library budgets failed to rise at the same rate as their
> host institutions, that declining percentages of libraries' budgets
> were allocated to collection development, and that libraries were not
> keeping up with the expansion of publications. Publishers were
> discouraged from underwriting research publications. [Fry, Bernard M.,
> and Herbert S. White. 1975. Economics and Interaction of the Publisher-
> Library Relationship in the Production and Use of Scholarly and
> Research Journals. Washington DC: National Science Foundation.]
>
> The transition from paper to electronic demands a period when both
> media must be produced. The technology is not even quite ready, not
> fully tested by some other industry segment. The transition period
> costs more, both to universities and to publishers who must
> experiment.
>
> I have a real concern with the vision of Steven Harnad, who preaches
> author page charges will support electronic publishing. (I take it
> this means libraries are out of his picture of the future. No wonder
> provost drool.) The reality that my experience suggests is that
> author page charges are being phased out by many of the publishers
> that have used them.
>
> I have a more basic concern with universities that have sought
> ways to evade their responsibility to conserve and disseminate
> new knowedge. If that is not what they want to do, they should
> come clean and explain it forthrightly -- not sneak about with
> misleading statements. Here the Pew Higher Education Roundtable
> states, "For two decades the leaders of America's univerisities
> and colleges have sought relief from the growing costs of
> providing access to an ever-expanding volume of scholarly output."
> [Policy Perspectives 7,4 March 1998] While acknowledging an
> imbalance between library budgets and research growth, the
> report focuses on publishers' prices and profits, misstates the
> history of commercial publishing, and talks about regaining the
> initiative through control of copyrights and decoupling publication
> from the tenure process. Why not restore balance to library /
> research financial growth?
>
> Most important, most administrative visions of the application of
> new technology fail to take on the costs sustained by the reader
> (including the value of time reading). Readers' costs exceed those
> of authors, publishers, and libraries in 1977 [Donald W. King et
> al. SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS IN THE U.S. Dowden Hutchinson Ross. 1981
> p. 220]:
>
> 12% Authors
> 14% Publishers
> 10% Libraries and (A&I) secondary organizations
> 64% Users
>
> As I understand it, the proposal aims to shift costs from
> libraries and publishers to authors and users. The distribution
> would become something like:
>
> 25% authors
> 75% readers!
>
> Authors and readers who lacked financial capacity to meet threshhold
> costs would be out of luck.
>
> On the other hand, administrators of research universities would be
> able to divvy up the $1.5 billion that they now spend on libraries
> to pay for new administrative solutions.

We've heard this before from Mr. Henderson. It's redundant. Very redundant.

To paraphrase a great 19th century queen: "We are no longer amused".

Can we talk about something else besides academic journals?

Michael A Scarpitti
Assistant Editor
Materials Evaluation
(800) 222-2768 X207
(614) 274-6003 X207
e-mail mscarpit[_at_]asnt.org Received on Tue Sep 29 1998 - 18:16:13 GMT