From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 15:05:04 -0700

I am sorry to hear that they laughed at you, David.

As I said in my previous note, it seems that NDAs are on the way out,
so there is little to argue about here.  I am personally in favor of
business arrangements between individual players and not those
mediated by large unrelated bodies, but then I am old-fashioned:  I
buy books in my local bookstore, prefer local merchants to chains,
etc.  So I view the NDA as the codification of a gentleman's
agreement.  But we live in different times.  Libraries are certainly
right to see some of their vendors as impersonal corporate marauders,
and some of the executives at these firms are proud to be so styled.

So if you will forgive this romantic, please take a look at trading
practices in, say, 5 years, and let me know if in the absence of NDAs
whether the terms have gone up or down.  For that matter, please do a
retrospective analysis of OA publishing and determine if the cost of
scholarly materials has gone up or down.

Joe Esposito


> From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 21:51:43 +0100
>
> I was once invited to dinner with a dozen or so corporate investors
> from the City of London.  They were interested in hearing the library
> view of how the journal publishing system worked and what the customer
> thought of some of the large players in the field (they almost never
> hear from customers, only the companies).
>
> I explained that a number of NDA were in place and that they were
> justified by the suppliers as a way of ensuring lower prices for
> customers.  The corporate investors all laughed at me.  I'm not sure
> they were convinced.
>
> David Prosser
>
>
> On 29 May 2012, at 19:51, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>
> > From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 29 May 2012 07:45:49 -0700
> >
> > Phil Davis has a thoughtful post on the Kitchen today on the role of
> > NDAs in license negotiations:
> >
> > http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/05/29/ndas-economic-tool-or-kabuki-theatre/
> >
> > Phil's view is that NDAs are not all that bad.  Many people will
> > disagree with him.
> >
> > Phil doesn't go far enough.  NDAs lower prices and increase
> > flexibility.  It's also the right thing to do.  In the absence of
> > them, every publisher sees the terms of every other publisher, which
> > leads to rigid standardization.
> >
> > Of course, advocates of openness will argue that the virtues of
> > transparency far outweigh any practical shortcomings.  I will remember
> > this as I write my kids' tuition checks.
> >
> > Joe Esposito
> >
> > Joseph J. Esposito