From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2018 19:19:49 +0000
I am not an anti-trust expert by any means, but I think the answer to this,
and to the same question posed by Rick, is straightforward. The limited
monopoly held by individual authors is not a problem — it is an “innocent”
monopoly, just like my exclusive rights over by house — because it does not
convey market dominance. The monopolist problem the complaint outlines is
quite different, where a large conglomeration of monopolies over content
are exercised in order to dominate a market and to exclude competition. The
line that is allegedly crossed has to be define within the terms of a
particular market, of course, which is precisely what competition
authorities are charged to do.
Kevin
On Nov 4, 2018, at 12:47 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Kent Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2018 06:42:35 -0700
Can someone explain to me what a “monopoly over articles” means compared to
the cultural expectations prohibiting duplicate publication and plagiarism?
Isn’t every article locked down by these expectations and norms, moreso
than by copyright?
Also, not all publishers require copyright transfer, so if this were an
issue for an author group, authors could shop for publishers who don’t. The
market would respond, and to some extent has responded. Isn’t copyright
transfer a market condition susceptible to market pressures?
But the first question is the one I’m most curious about. What would
“non-monopolized” articles look like? Any different?
--
*Kent Anderson *
CEO, RedLink and RedLink Network
57 East Main Street, Suite 211
Westborough, MA 01581
https://www.redlink.com
*Phone: *508-366-5653
*Cell:* 774-288-9464
*Email:* [log in to unmask]
*ORCID:* 0000-0002-5458-6735
On November 1, 2018 at 8:56:50 PM, LIBLICENSE ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2018 17:30:33 -0700
Rick, there were two points that struck me as particularly well-made:
1. They describe well and persuasively the de facto monopoly that
publishers hold over articles whose rights have been signed over to
them and make the point that this condition makes it effectively
impossible to create a fair market in such information. (What is
unclear is what remedies there might be at law in the EU for such a
condition. I assume there must be relevant parallels.)
2. They also make the point that Elsevier and others are engaging in
vertical integration with anti-competitive results thus: "Vertical
integration of services creates a ‘virtual lock in’ environment for
Elsevier’s customers and users, ensuring that its digital services
crowd out and exclude those of its competitors from the market. This
applies particularly to a range of downstream competitive services
within scholarly publishing and communication, and now represents the
ongoing concentration of scholarly infrastructures by Elsevier and a
small number of ‘competitors’."
I will just add that I well understand there will likely be response
on these points from Elsevier in the process that now opens. My point
in the original posting was just to say that the document struck me as
thoughtful, well-argued, and unrhetorical. I may have been influenced
by a recent viewing of a relevant film that struck me, apart from
contributions by Anderson and Watkinson, as deficient on all those
points.
Jim O'Donnell
ASU
On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 4:45 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2018 22:45:08 +0000
>
> Jim, what do you think are the strongest arguments that Tennant and
Brembs make in their complaint?
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
> Marriott Library, University of Utah
> Desk: (801) 587-9989
> Cell: (801) 721-1687
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:18:48 -0700
>
> Here is a good source for the formal complaint filed on 26 October
regarding RELX and the wider scholarly publishing market to the EU
competition authority. Full text (22pp) PDF available --
https://zenodo.org/record/1472045#.W9iP5hNKjOR (My thanks to Gary Price's
invaluable infoDOCKET for the link.)
>
> The complaint is partisan, no question, but represents to my eye a
serious and coherent attempt to make the case for why big journal
publishing can be interpreted as importantly marked by anti-competitive
practices. The complaint is short, but not negligible, on practical
remedies (pp. 20-21). In an environment where rhetoric and posturing often
prevail in discussions of the topic, this one was refreshing. I hope that
the respondents to this complaint can answer publicly with equal coherence
and intelligence.
>
> Jim O'Donnell
> Arizona State University
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