From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:52:03 -0500

Actually, I doubt that the "big numbers" in terms of reprints favor
STM over the humanities. There are likely a great many more
anthologies reprinting articles in the humanities than there are in
the STM fields.  Think of a classic essay like John Rawls's "Justice
as Fairness." I suspect this has been reprinted hundreds of times.

Sandy


> From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:56:11 +0100
>
> Yes I agree. I am speaking about STM but this is where the big numbers
> are. I am aware humanities journals worked differently though now many
> or most of the larger ones are handled in the same way by larger
> companies. At least that is my understanding. Corrections welcome
>
> Yes it would be possible to set up a system though it does mean every
> author has an account. As a journal author I get a small payment every
> year from the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society in the UK.
>
> I do not know how it came about that book authors had royalties and
> very rarely did anyone in the journal editorial structure even the
> editor received a royalty. I can think of a tiny number of instances
> from the 1970s. This is of course historical. I suspect that any sort
> of payment to editors of journals (never mind authors) came about when
> commercial publishers became a more important part of the overall
> picture - they had of course always been there. My memory is that in
> the past learned societies paid journal editors nothing. Commercial
> publishers I have worked for always paid editors although sometimes it
> was so-called expenses.
>
> If anyone knows how journals and books moved apart in the way they
> were run and the way they were financed I would love to know. Has
> anyone written on this?
>
> This is of course history. I am not arguing that it is good - or bad.
>
> Anthony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:34:32 -0500
>
> In STM journals you're right that probably the majority of articles
> are written by multiple authors. That is certainly NOT true for
> journals in the humanities. Social sciences fall somewhere in between,
> I'd say. But I'm not sure why this would be a problem, since book
> co-authors and co-editors are generally paid royalties and shares of
> subsidiary rights.
>
> I'm not sure what length has to do with it either. if you look at a
> typical anthology in philosophy, for example, you'll see that the
> great majority of the contents are reprinted journal articles, rather
> than excerpts from books.
>
> No doubt the main reason for the difference in treatment,
> historically, is that the cost of tracking subsidiary rights income
> for journal
> authors--especially for publishers with large numbers of journals and
> hence large numbers of authors--was considered excessive in relation
> to the benefits likely to accrue to any authors.  My guess is that
> this kind of cost is much less with fully automated tracking systems,
> though it no doubt remains true that the vast majority of journal
> authors would not make a great deal of money from the sharing of such
> income.
>
> Sandy