Royalty-Seeking on Impact-Seeking Give-Away Content?

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:05:31 -0500

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sheppard, Nick <N.E.Sheppard -- leedsmet.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 7:10 AM
Subject: ACLS and royalties
To: JISC-REPOSITORIES -- jiscmail.ac.uk

      An academic has recently contacted me with an enquiry
      about ACLS [Authors' Licensing and Collecting Service ]
      and the payment of royalties on material downloaded from
      IRs:

> The other aspect of this is that academics - under the
      ACLS 
> service - authors collecting and licencing service -
      derive 
> (admittedly small) amounts of money from institutional
      copying 
> charges world wide of >published articles. If we start
      putting up 
> essays on a repository, we are in danger of cutting off
      a 
> legitimate source of income for our work - some years
      it might
> be 70 quid others it might be 220 from p/copying in
      Norway 
> and USA or Europe etc.  If the ACLS were able to figure
      the
> number of hits to university repositories, we could
      continue 
> to receive payment on the basis of our copyright
      ownership.

      I spoke to someone at ACLS who told me they are unsure of
      where they stand on the issue themselves and referred me
      to the Society of Authors for further advice.  Thought
      I'd try the list first?


It is hard to discern whether this question was raised in earnest or
in jest! 

Does anyone imagine that the authors of refereed journal articles
would gain more from (1)  the pennies they might demand from ALCS
tolls on viewing their content (online viewing tolls alongside the
subscription tolls from which OA was meant to free refereed research
articles) than they would from (2) the enhanced uptake, usage, and
impact that OA itself provides, freeing their published papers from
all user-access-toll barriers -- and (3) the contribution of that
enhanced impact to their performance evaluations, salaries,
promotions, RAE ranking and research funding?

OA is about author-giveaway content: refereed journal articles,
written only for research usage and impact. OA is not about
royalty-seeking books, nor fee-based magazine articles. How on earth
does ALCS get into this at all? 

      1.1. Distinguish the non-give-away literature from the
      give-away literature
      1.2. Distinguish income (arising from article sales) from
      impact (arising from article use)
      http://cogprints.org/1639/1/resolution.htm#1.1

 
Stevan Harnad
Received on Mon Nov 24 2008 - 14:18:39 GMT

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