Re: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

And let's remind Fred that what he says is true for journals, not 
books. All academic book publishers I know pay peer reviewers an 
honorarium, which--it must be admitted--is hardly comparable to 
their hourly rate they earn as teachers. So there is still some 
degree of subsidy involved here, but it is not complete subsidy, 
as it is for journal publishing.

Sandy Thatcher


At 5:19 PM -0500 1/12/11, FrederickFriend wrote:

>Sally chooses her words very carefully. Publishers do indeed pay 
>for the peer review infrastructure, but they do not pay for peer 
>review, the cost of which is borne by the academic community and 
>far outweighs the cost of the infrastructure. When you look at 
>the total costs borne by each stakeholder in the world of 
>academic journals, the contribution of publishers is still 
>important but it is put into perspective, and even more into 
>perspective when you look at the economic value of the benefits 
>from each stakeholder contribution.
>
>Fred Friend
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Sally Morris
>Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 2:26 AM
>To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>Subject: RE: Rights Reductio Ad Absurdum
>
>No one seems to have mentioned that you also can't blame
>publishers for wanting to protect what they have added to an
>author's 'raw' work.  They invest substantially in creating the
>journal, association with which benefits the article;  they
>(often) pay the journal editor;  they pay for the peer review
>infrastructure;  they pay for copy-editing;  and that's before it
>even gets published.
>
>Sally
>
>Sally Morris
>South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK  BN13 3UU
>Email:  sally@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk