Re: Monopolies in publishing

["Anthony Watkinson" <anthony.watkinson@btopenworld.com>]

This is not an adversarial comment. I do want to draw attention to a
problem with multiple copies and that is authenticity. What is the status
of which version? Is the version one reaches on one site the same as the
validated version? The "published" version goes through the copy-editing
process, which almost results in some revisions, and is different from
"vanilla" version (Harnad). OK - you can have agreed metadata (which we do
not have at the moment) but then there is a question of trusting whoever
creates the metadata. I appreciate that there are a whole raft of issues
here, but I am posting just to raise the question.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Heather Morrison" <hmorrison@ola.bc.ca>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 10:51 PM
Subject: RE: Monopolies in publishing

> Why not multiple copies?
>
> One of the advantages of the electronic medium is that it is very easy to
> make multiple copies of an article; of course, this is a disadvantage when
> you're trying to control or limit access.
>
> Perhaps there are good reasons to contemplate a multiple-copy model of
> publishing.  The author could host their own collected works, if they
> wanted to (and why would the author not be able to post the final
> peer-reviewed copy?  If copyright is not meant to benefit the creator of
> the work, what's the point?), the author's institution could keep a copy
> in an institutional repository, and other copies could be part of journals
> or aggregate databases.
>
> There could be good reasons for repackaging and selling material that is
> also available for free.  For example, by providing metadata, a portal,
> usage statistics, and bringing together large numbers of items that people
> are likely to want to search together, a vendor would be adding value that
> would be worth paying for.
>
> It seems to me that potential advantages of such a model include the
> possibility of greater security of access and preservation, as well as a
> moderating influence on pricing of commercial alternatives.  That is, I'm
> sure people are willing to pay for repackaging for the sake of convenience
> - but only to a point.  When the price is too high, people will go to the
> effort of finding the freely available copies.
>
> my theory for the day,
>
> Heather Grace Morrison