GWU Ethics in Publishing 2015 - Is is ethical for publishers to make a profit?
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This document discusses whether it is ethical for for-profit publishers to profit from information. The presenter acknowledges criticisms from open access advocates but argues that publishers add value by improving accessibility of information and must profit to survive. The presenter notes that governments and technology shape information environments and customers ultimately get what they want. Publishers must continue innovating to provide more value through features like customization and integration to justify costs in an increasingly open digital landscape.
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GWU Ethics in Publishing 2015 - Is is ethical for publishers to make a profit?
- 1. Is it ethical to profit from information? Stephen Rhind-Tutt, President GW Conference on Ethics & Publishing June 2015
- 2. a) I’ve never taken a course on ethics b) I’m a for profit publisher c) I’m not a journal publisher
- 3. WHO WE ARE • Publishers of primary sources, streaming video and music • 100+ people – offices in the US, UK, China, Malaysia and Australia • Recognized by E-content magazine as one of 100 companies that “matter most to the digital economy”
- 4. Some of our publications
- 5. Is it ethical to make a profit on information?
- 6. Why ask? “You are a dirty publisher. Making money from exploiting information is obscene” Tenured Professor to me, Cambridge, June 2011 “Companies like CAS make $100m in profits…” Participant in DPLA meetings, Harvard, May 2012 “You can’t link to us because that’s making money off what we do. We can’t link to you because you sell your content” Various comments
- 7. Open Access Advocates Public money pays for research. Publishers sell the research back at outrageous prices to the very people that created it. All information should be freely accessible
- 8. We have the right to profit from information as much and as we like and how we like Publisher Argument It costs money to make publications. We do it better than anyone else. We charge what the market will bear.
- 9. [Presentation Name] | June 16, 2015 Capitalism vs. Communism
- 10. [Presentation Name] | June 16, 2015 Protestant vs. Catholic
- 11. Road that leads nowhere [Presentation Name] | June 16, 2015
- 12. Let’s focus instead on What’s practical? What can both sides agree on? And see where it takes us…
- 13. 6 key points • One environment for all • Governments give and governments take away • ‘Information’ is not a commodity: Open access is not an absolute • For profit commerce is always present in the information chain • Customers almost always get what they want in the end • Businesses follow money
- 14. One environment for all…
- 15. – SilverPlatter MEDLINE (>$10m in sales) – Royalties to the NLM (<$200k) – Seven other vendors also making $$$ – SilverPlatter ERIC ($1.5m in sales) – Royalties to Dept. of Education (<$100k) – Many other vendors – SilverPlatter SEC Online – No royalties going back to the SEC Electronic publishing in1990
- 16. – PubMed provides free access to the world – ERIC offered free to the world – SEC filings offered free to the world – What’s happened to the vendors? Wind forward to 2011
- 17. – Ovid and others continue to profit from public domain MEDLINE – New entrants – SilverChair, Collexis… – SEC filings continue to sell – Bloomberg, Yahoo and many new entrants – Aries Systems moved into publisher services – CSC provides free access to all for ERIC with a 5 year contract for $29m Environment in 2011
- 18. Someone always tries to make a profit… Digitization and Conversion Hosting & Banking CMS, Indexing and discovery Infrastructure Hardware
- 19. It’s Darwinian
- 20. The role of government • Differs by country • Difficult to predict • Timing • Hard for most of us to influence • Cannot rely on it 5 April 1710
- 21. Need to add value to survive…
- 22. This is a commodity…
- 23. This is anything but a commodity
- 24. Information isn’t a commodity! Black & White Grayscale 24 bit color 48 bit color 100 dpi 600 dpi JPG TIFF Citation MARC Record Dirty OCR 99.995% rekeying Semantic Indexing Thumbnails 100 dpi Page Collection Letter Facsimiles Transcriptions EAD Finding Aid Repository Mobile Web TCP-IP
- 25. Adding more and more value… Low Value High Value Document ASCII Searchability Low res. images MARC record High res PDF version Video abstract Promotion Links to citations Author links Process integration Cross-searching Workflow tools Usage statistics Collaboration tools Ability to comment Underlying data available Discovery integration Open For fee
- 27. If you try and stop profit making… you slow value added Low Value High Value Document ASCII Searchability Low res. images MARC record High res PDF version Video abstract Promotion Links to citations Author links Cross-searching Workflow tools Usage statistics Collaboration tools Ability to comment Underlying data available Discovery integration Open
- 28. Add more and more value… Low Value High Value Document ASCII Searchability Low res. images MARC record High res PDF version Video abstract Promotion Links to citations Author links Process integration Cross-searching Workflow tools Usage statistics Collaboration tools Ability to comment Underlying data available Discovery integration Open For fee
- 29. Be of the web Music Newspapers Websites Monographs Primary Works Journals
- 30. “You may not create links to any …page or file forming part of our website without our prior written permission." http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/links-banned-2011/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/4199675334// Malcolm Coles’ Posts Sites that forbid you from linking to them
- 31. More and more ways to add value… • More editorial value • More functionality • More comprehensive • Semantically organized • Customization to individuals • Discipline, community value • Web/network value
- 33. The American Civil War Research Database
- 34. 15 times faster to read than to watch… 30 minutes of news 12 double spaced pages 5 minutes to read in depth 2 minutes to scan read
- 35. Adding value to video
- 36. Long way to go… Source: Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom, Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills. http://www.systems- thinking.org/ Who, What, When, Where? Therefore Why?
- 37. Customers get what customers want (in the long run)
- 38. Commercial Publisher Behavior If free access became more profitable than restricted access they’d embrace it very quickly… Highly predictable!
- 39. Sian Harris, Completing the information cycle, Research Information: June/July 2013 Read about Discoveries Plan Experiments Conduct Experiments Analyze Results Share Results Publish Discoveries
- 40. Back to 1990… • The Web fast opening up… • Who were the candidates to make the big $$$$ in information? – Cambridge Scientific ? – Elsevier ? – Springer ? – America Online?
- 41. $ Bn. Market Capitalization of Selected Companies 2000-2015 $ 386Bn.
- 42. Summary • All organizations operate in a Darwinian environment – Funding, Legislation, Investment, Technology, Lobbying, Philosophy, Commerce, Non-profit • The technology is allowing us to serve customers far better than ever before • Free access is here to stay and will exert ever greater pressure on commercial companies to add value • Commercial companies are here to stay and will have to find new ways to add value or they will cease to exist [Presentation Name] | June 16, 2015