From: Steve Oberg <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2013 00:41:40 +0000

I would call into question the basic point of Big Pharma being users
rather than contributors to journal articles. On what basis is this
statement made? Or did I misunderstand?  I've recently worked in a Big
Pharma company (for about 7 1/2 years) and made a conservative
estimate of 200-300 articles contributed to peer-reviewed journals
each year by this company's scientists.

Steve

On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:34 PM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: "Friend, Fred" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 14:25:10 +0000
>
> Dear Anthony,
>
> Who is losing out by this "complete removal of a source of income"?
> The taxpayer is not losing out because the pharma companies pay taxes,
> taxes which pay for the toll-free access to publicly-funded research
> outputs. The pharma companies are not freeloading upon the economies
> of the countries in which they are based (or if they are it is not
> because of the availability of free journals). The benefit that the
> pharma companies receive from open access contribute to economic
> growth in the same way as the benefit that any commercial company
> receives from OA contributes to economic growth. Publicly-funded
> research does not lose out because research institutions would not
> have received any income from the money paid for journals by the
> pharma companies. So are the publishers of the journals previously
> purchased by the pharma companies the only stakeholders losing out? If
> so, forgive me if I do not shed any tears over their loss.
>
> Fred Friend
> Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
>
> ________________________________________
>
> From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2013 21:58:02 +0100
>
> From what I know of David's career in publishing, I do not imagine he
> has ever had to make a decision to give up a source of income which
> for some publishers ( probably not T&F ) is important for some
> journals, and it is a long time since I might have been involved.
>
> I wonder what he would do? Perhaps he could tell us - hypothetically
> of course. What to me is interesting is the lack of discussion about
> the complete removal of a source of income to the the scholarly
> communication process from big pharma (users rather than contributors
> of papers) under an OA scenario. Freeloading or free riding used to be
> much discussed.
>
> Anthony