On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 7:32 AM, David L. McNeely <mcnee...@cox.net> wrote:
> The money that ESA and other scholarly organizations charge for > electronic copies of their reports goes to support the organization. The > organization makes possible the publication and decimination of new > knowledge. There are costs involved, whether or not you think that the > only thing the organization has to pay is for the electrical power to zip > electrons around. Yes, the incremental cost of pushing out another copy is > small. But all the infrastructure of the organization is involved in > getting there, and is at stake if we succomb to the idea that only the > incremental cost should be paid by the user. > Then what did ESA and other publishers do before widespread Internet use? Back then, people would go to the library and, if the library subscribed, photocopy the articles they needed. They paid the library for copies, but publishers saw none of that money. And if they just read the article without copying it, they paid nothing at all! Jane Shevtsov -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia co-founder, www.worldbeyondborders.org "She has future plans and dreams at night. They tell her life is hard; she says 'That's all right'." --Faith Hill, "Wild One"
