From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2019 08:39:57 +0000

Your comment about the relative size of these markets is nicely
illustrative of my point, Joe.  The academic publishing sector continues to
make more and more costly products that they are trying to sell to a
dwindling customer base that can no longer afford them.  Thus we have a
market failure.



Professor Larry Lessig helpfully distinguishes four paths by which social
behavior can be regulated – law, social norms, markets, and “architecture”
(as in computer code).  The article Jim referred us to finds that a resort
to law is ineffective in a situation where the market is not sustainable.
My experience trying to obtain that article was just illustrative of why
that is so; I was priced out of the very paths that these lawsuits are
trying to shore up, so I had to resort to an alternative form of access
(thanks to the efficiency of the ILL services at my university).  In short,
the market drove me in a direction quite different than the plaintiffs in
the lawsuits the article discusses would like me to take.  These efforts
through litigation are simply not able to overcome the market forces that
increasingly influence the behavior of consumers in this area.



Kevin



Kevin L. Smith, M.L.S., J.D.

Dean of Libraries

University of Kansas





From: JJE Esposito <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2019 08:26:46 -0400

Comparing the price of a scholarly publication, with an audience numbered
in the hundreds, with a NY Times bestseller, with an audience of hundreds
of thousands, reveals a lack of understanding of economics.



Individuals can get "Learned Publishing" by joining the Society for
Scholarly Publishing for $180. That gets you not only the article in
question but the entire journal, which is available to SSP members as part
of an arrangement with ALPSP.  SSP has other benefits for members as well,
including its support for "The Scholarly Kitchen," that beacon of truth and
justice. "Kitchen" contributors include librarians (e.g., Lisa Hinchliffe,
Rick Anderson).



Joe Esposito



Joseph J. Esposito
[log in to unmask]
@josephjesposito
+Joseph Esposito





On Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 6:58 PM LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2019 13:02:36 +0000

Paywalled indeed.  My own situation vis-à-vis this article is telling, I
think.  We had to cancel our Wiley “big deal” last year because we could no
longer afford it.  *Learned Publishing* is not among the comparatively
small number of Wiley titles we retained.  A PDF of the individual article
would cost me $42, almost three times more than what the latest NYT
bestseller would cost me on Amazon.  In itself, this illustrates the market
failures that have led to the development of ResearchGate and SciHub, and
it is because they are fighting against a collapsing market that these
lawsuits are futile.



Interestingly, if Professor Manley has published in a traditional law
review, his article would quite likely be more widely available, since they
are virtually all open.



Kevin Smith

University of Kansas





From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2019 15:50:07 -0700

Stewart Manley of the law faculty at the University of Malaya in Kuala
Lumpur has an interesting new article in* Learned Publishing*: "On the
limitations of recent lawsuits against Sci-Hub, OMICS, ResearchGate, and
Georgia State University," *doi: 10.1002/leap.1254* (probably paywalled for
many).  He assesses the effect on real world behavior of recent lawsuits
advanced and won against institutions pressing forward with open access
strategies by major publishers.  He gives these "key points":



   - The 2017 Sci-Hub judgment has, to date, proven unenforceable, and it
   appears that enforcing the 2019 OMICS judgment will similarly prove
   challenging.
   - Business developments and changing expectations over sharing digital
   content may also undermine the impact of the ongoing cases against
   ResearchGate and Georgia State University.
   - Stakeholders should consider these limitations when deciding how to
   resolve scholarly publishing disputes.



It's not unprecedented that attempts at definitive action/direction through
political/legal institutions may be rendered irrelevant by adjustments in
the behavior of stakeholders pursuing their own interests.  In this case it
makes the author optimistic that moves toward open access will in fact
prevail in spite of legal defeats or restrictions.



Jim O'Donnell

ASU