PLOS article metrics correction: greed, not profit

[Heather Morrison <hgmorris@sfu.ca>]

Recently, I wrote:

This is an excellent argument for eliminating the for-profit 
sector from scholarly publishing.  As things stand, some of the 
mega- publishers are already taking in profit margins of 30% or 
higher; once you add in taxes, that's at least 50% of revenue 
spent without a dime going to anything having to do with 
scholarship.  That's not even taking into account sales lobbying, 
etc.!  Add to this even more money going to aggressive marketing, 
and the percentage of the academic library budget that actually 
goes to scholarly aims will be very small indeed.

Correction:  this should have read "eliminating the greedy sector 
from scholarly publishing".  There are many responsible 
for-profit publishers, open access and subscription-based alike. 
If this describes your journal or organiztion, my apologies; your 
continuing participation in scholarly communication is most 
welcome.  If you are subscription-based, I wish you every success 
in the transition to open access.

Definition of greedy?  Profit margins of in the range of 30% 
(almost unheard of for businesses), revenue and profit increases 
when customers around the world are hurting.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com