The Scientist :: Economics of open access
Using income tax records, however, Willinsky conducted an analysis of publishing costs as a proportion of total operating costs of scholarly associations. Of the 20 associations he surveyed, 14 did not generate enough income from their journals (through subscriptions and royalties) to compensate for the cost of producing the journal and often used membership dues and other revenue sources to subsidize the journals.
This is a great short article about the current state-of-affairs of the open access model for scientific literature.
Posted by johnvu at August 22, 2003 11:13 AM...another reason that contract law will eventually win out over copyright law in the publishing world. It's almost and exact repeat of the collapse of the inter-library loan system.
Posted by: Paul Filmer on August 22, 2003 02:49 PM