From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:40:03 -0400

But David is correct about this.  While it's a pain to set up systems
like this, once they are in place they don't cost a lot to maintain,
assuming a certain scale on the part of the publisher (or the vendor
the publisher uses).  You can track anything, can set up accounts for
everyone, can send small checks anywhere, and can arrange for
electronic funds transfers between any two parties.

What's missing is market demand.  If publishers could create more
profitable journals by paying authors, they would pay authors.  If the
author payments failed to attract articles that strengthened a
publisher's hand in raising prices, there would be no economic reason
to pay authors.  I hope no one seriously believes that if authors were
paid that they would all get the same amount of money.  Superstars
would get almost all of it, as they do in any media business.

What's important to bear in mind is that that is the appropriate
measure, the profitability of the entity making the payments.
Fairness has nothing to do with it unless perceived unfairness eats
into profitability.  Woodrow Wilson:  we all live within an economic
system that is heartless (quoting from memory).

Joe Esposito


On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 5:47 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Bill Cohen <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:01:28 -0400
>
> In fairness (or grant you, unfairness) it is not difficult to invoice
> the author of a newly submitted journal article author for page
> charges, color figure charges, reprint charges.  You have their
> address easily in hand.
>
> It (was, in my day) another matter to track down authors 2, 5, or 7 or
> more years down the pike to supply a check.   They have very likely
> changed addresses multiple times.   Even nowadays if you try googling
> an academic, their can be awfully difficult to track down.
>
>
> On 4/11/13 7:03 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> > From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:02:58 +0100
> >
> > Although interestingly publishers over the last 100 years have managed
> > to track 'small' payments from authors (page charges, colour figure
> > charges, reprint charges, etc).
> >
> > David
> >
> >
> > On 10 Apr 2013, at 19:54, LIBLICENSE wrote:
> >
> > From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2013 21:01:43 +0000
> >
> > I was told tracking individual payments for journal articles was too
> > insignificant and too much trouble when I asked about this at Pergamon
> > Press and then Elsevier.
> >
> > Chuck Hamaker