It is my belief that the boundary between give-away and non-give-away is not as clear-cut as you imply Stevan. I, for instance, have been paid by peer-review journals for articles I have contributed to them. Academics tell me that it is also not unknown for them to receive payment for publishing in peer-review journals. In other words, publications ostensibly operating as vehicles for give-away content alone will sometimes supplement that give-away content with non-give-away content; and academics themselves will sometimes provide this (on a non-give-away basis).
Additionally, of course, academics also frequently produce articles and papers for other types of publications/other venues for a fee. The reverse also occurs: as a freelance journalist trying to place articles in non-give-away publications I sometimes find I am competing against academics willing to provide "copy" on a give-away basis. Maybe such incidents are not the norm, but it does lead me to believe that the boundary between give-away and non-give-away is fuzzier than you suggest, and therefore researchers and research publications could benefit from being better able to distinguish between give-away and non-give-away material - one of the primary purposes of the CC licences. Perhaps the bigger point here is that the internet has proved a catalyst for change in all areas of content creation, and therefore introduced the opportunity - in some cases necessity - for new/different methods/ business models. OA would not be possible without the web, and OA publishing, which sees a shift from a reader-pays to an author-pays model, is a good example of a new business model made possible by it. Similarly radical changes are taking place in many areas of non-give-away creative endeavour, not least in the music industry. We can expect some of these new approaches to look very similar to the traditional give-away model of peer-reviewed journals, suggesting that the boundary between give-away and non-give-away will become fuzzier as time passes. Indeed, as governments and research institutions seek (for good or bad) to better "exploit" the intellectual property generated by researchers, we may even see attempts to move some of the traditional give-away output of scholarly publishing into the non-give-away arena - which might or might not prove successful. What is surely certain is that many of the new methods for content distribution thrown up by the internet need new, more flexible ways of expressing the altered relationships that this introduces between creators and those who distribute and consume their creations. As such new licenses like those of the CC - along with the FDL, OPL etc. - look set to become increasingly popular, both in the traditional non-give-away world and, I would suggest, in the traditional give-away arena of scholarly publishing too. Richard Poynder Freelance Journalist www.richardpoynder.com
