[Pharm-policy] Re: [Ip-health] tiered pricing for Access to biomedical journals
Alan Story
Alan Story" <a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk
Fri Jul 13 09:12:01 2001
I am pasting in a slight edited version of a reply I sent to another list
about this same announcement which had praised this "gift" and " sacrifice"
from publishers and explained that subscription rates would be imposed if
and when the
per capita income of these countries increased.
A few comments on "this gift" :
1) The "giving" is actually be done by the authors of the medical journal
articles, not the publishers. The publishers are only passing on what they
got for free from authors who are forced to assign copyright to the
publishers as a
condition of publication. In turn, the academic authors have, in the main,
been
paid to do what they do by taxpayers, by student fees, and by government
grants.
2) And this is certainly not the benevolence it appears to be at first
glance. That is, they are giving
away what you have got for free and are passing it on to others without
invoking any extra distribution costs.
And then, down the road, when they have a created a market for online
journals in
third world countries or those countries increase their per capita income,
then they will start charging them. A roughly similar model is used by Lexis
and
Westlaw at law schools; while at law school, students get almost unlimited
and "free" access (mind you, the law schools pay a whopping per capita
licence fee!) and the students, not surprisingly, get "hooked" on the
wonders of electronic legal research. And then when they become lawyers,
the
students start charging their clients an hourly rate --- a few years ago it
was $75 an hour --- for online legal research. Such fees rapidly pay back
"the subsidy" handed out during law school. And the winners are? Lexis and
Westlaw.
3) I assume this benevolence will also include full access to
non-proprietary open source software so that these third world universities,
to get access to this information, will not have to rely on Microsoft and
pay the absolutely scandalous rates that Microsoft charges. Did you know
that a rich university such as Harvard pays exactly the same software
licensing fees per desk to Microsoft as does the University of Zimbabwe?
But then we read that the Gates Foundation is one of the big backers of this
benevolence...and we quickly see that this benevolence is all about creating
a second market, this for computer software.
4) And finally I assume that this benevolence will also include significant
financial assistance so that scholars at third world universities can
increase their contributions to these journals and others. The governing
assumption behind
this project is that scholars and students at third world universities will
be merely the consumers of information/ knowledge from the "advanced
countries", never or seldom the producers.
Regards
Alan
Alan Story
Kent Law School
University of Kent
Canterbury Kent U.K
CT2 7NS.
a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk
44 (0)1227 823316
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Love" <love@cptech.org>
To: "IP-Health list" <ip-health@lists.essential.org>; "pharm-policy"
<pharm-policy@lists.essential.org>
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2001 1:00 AM
Subject: [Ip-health] tiered pricing for Access to biomedical journals
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: tiered pricing for Access to biomedical journals
> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 14:55:20 +0200
> From: Els Torreele <etorreel@vub.ac.be>
> To: James Love <love@cptech.org>
>
> FYI
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: tdr> Access to biomedical journals
> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 01:47:39 +0200
> From: kleinm@who.ch
> To: tdr-scientists@who.ch
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> -for tropical disease researchers & friends: "tdr-scientists list"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> WHO Press Release WHO/32 9 July 2001
>
> WHO and top publishers announce breakthrough
> on developing countries'access to leading biomedical journals
>
> London - The World Health Organization and the world's six biggest
> medical journal publishers today announce a new initiative which will
> enable close to 100 developing countries to gain access to vital
> scientific information that they otherwise could not afford.
>
> The arrangement agreed to by the six publishers would allow almost 1000
> of the world'ss leading medical and scientific journals to become
> available through the Internet to medical schools and research
> institutions in developing countries for free or at deeply-reduced
> rates.
>
> Overseeing the signing of the Statement of Intent by senior executives
> of the publishers, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of WHO,
> said: "As a direct consequence of this arrangement, many thousands of
> doctors, researchers and health policy-makers among others will be able
> to use the best-available scieentific evidence to an unprecedented
> degree
> to help them improve the health of their populations. It is perhaps the
> biggest step ever taken towards reducing the health information gap
> between rich an d poor countries."
>
> Until now, biomedical journal subscriptions, both electronic and print,
> have been priced uniformly for medical schools, research centres and
> similar institutions irrespective of geographical location. Annual
> subscription prices cost on average several hundred dollars per title.
> Manyy key titles cost more than $1500 per year. This has made it all but
> impossible for the large majority of health and research institutions in
> the poorest countries to access critical scientific information.
>
> Scheduled to start in January 2002, the initiative is expected to last
> for at least 3 years while being monitored for progress. It will benefit
> bona fide academic and research institutions, which depend on timely
> access to biomedical journals. Between now and the end of this year,
> these instituttions will be identified individually and the process put
> in place so that they can receive and use access authentication. All
> parties-the publishers and the participating institutions will learn
> from this experience. Decisions about how to proceed after the
> initiative will grow from the precedents it sets, and will be informed
> by the working relationships which have developed among the partners.
>
> The initiative is an important step in the establishment of the Health
> InterNetwork, a project introducced by United Nations' Secretary-General
> Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit last year. Led by WHO, the Health
> InterNetwork aims to strengthen public health services by providing
> public health workers, researchers and policy makers access to
> high-quality, relevant and timely health information through an Internet
> portal. It further aims to improve communication and networking. As key
> components, the project will provide training as well as information and
> communication technology applications for public health.
>
> Working with the British Medical Journal and the Open Society Institute
> of the Soros foundation network, WHO approached the 6 biggest medical
> journal publishers, Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide
> STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer
> Verlag and John Wiley, with the aim of bringing them together with the
> countries concerned to seek a more affordable pricing structure for
> online access to their international biomedical journals.
>
> The ouutcome is a tiered-pricing model developed by the publishers that
> will make nearly 1000 of the 1240 top international biomedical journals
> available to institutions in the 100 poorest countries free of charge or
> at significantly reduced rates.
>
> For further information, journalists can contact Mr Gregory Hartl, WHO
> Spokesperson, WHO, Geneva. Tel. +41 22 791 4458; Fax +41 22 791 4858;
> Email: hartlg@who.int
>
> All WHO Press Releases, Fact Sheets and Features as well as other
> information on this subject can be obtained on Internet on the WHO home
> page http://www.who.int
>
>
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