OK, but 5 years is still a lot shorter than 9 or even 7. Why do you think it should be so short?

No it should not be free. If it was in a capitalist society those tasked with creating knowledge unconstrained by commercial interests would go hungry. Then again the viciousness which prosecutors went after Swartz is also wrong.

"If it was in a capitalist society those tasked with creating knowledge unconstrained by commercial interests would go hungry."

But by the time a paper is published, the researchers have already been paid. It's only the Journals making money at that point.

As I said in my last post. I'd concede 7 or 9 years for pharmaceutical research. Its a field that I admit, is more costly (both in time and money), than those I was thinking of when I decided to write five years.

So with that disclaimer in mind.I think that it could be shortened without major problems. Because many of the drugs today which are out of patent, are still making a fortune. Ritalin sales for example were 375 million dollars in 2007. Which is already larger than 10s or costs in the low 100s of millions. In one year. Without any patent protection. (Now while that isn't profit so it isn't the most useful number it was the only one I had much luck finding.) And these companies can charge for more for a drug which they have a monopoly on, make lots of money after the patent, and even when generic drugs are produced, they still have to go through approval processes, and production. Gleevec, 3.1 billion dollars sold in 2007.

Most Academic Journals do not make money, and the money the make is plugged into costs and whatever professional organization supports them. And how much do those journals rely on the fact that livraries across the country subscribe, and why would a library subscribe if they were free online.

The fact of the matter is that Journals fill the niche of a source of scholarly information free of meddling commercial interests. Kill the institution of Academic journals and what do you have? Perhaps a system of free online journals can fill this void but that remains to be seen.

Yeah, but for every successful drug there are probably several unsuccessful ones. The good ones have to pay for the bad. In any case, I think we both understand that pharmaceuticals are a special case, which probably warrant their own discussion.

I will agree, for instance, that most technology patents last much too long. They often aren't nearly as expensive and technology moves so quickly, patents are often worthless by the time they finally expire.

"Most Academic Journals do not make money, and the money the make is plugged into costs and whatever professional organization supports them. And how much do those journals rely on the fact that livraries across the country subscribe, and why would a library subscribe if they were free online."

I honestly don't have the answers to these questions, but I'll look into it.

that being said, I don't know enough as to whether a free online source, or system of sources of academic work would be viable. Basically what this free source would need to support is

1. Obtaining content (I don't believe journals themselves offer mch in way of a monetary reward for publishing)
2. Facilitating pier review (Again I don't think peer reviewers are given much)
3. Compensating staff, editors, etc.

not too bad, but I'm no expert. Might be missing some big considerations

"Yeah, but for every successful drug there are probably several unsuccessful ones. The good ones have to pay for the bad. In any case, I think we both understand that pharmaceuticals are a special case, which probably warrant their own discussion."

There is that to take into account. But yes. I think it would be best to leave Pharmaceuticals to another discussion. As they do bear some special considerations.

An interesting solution to copyright in general. (Though a bureaucratic nightmare) Would be to have patents last until a 5% ROI is achieved, or 20 years. Whatever comes first.

The problem with that solution, besides tracking how each and every patent is progressing, would be it encourages patent trolling, by just sitting on a patent so it lasts for forever, additionally, it delays scientists from learning from the mistakes of others, instead of just being able to replicate the successes.

Overall this is why I support a short copyright, as it allows faster innovation from all fronts, due to increased access to information.

Yeah, technology based knowledge, among a few other things was in the forefront of my mind, as one of the realms that lasts far too long.

The biggest problem is reputation. A journal needs a good reputation to attract good papers and it needs good papers to have a good reputation. A serious chicken and egg situation.

I know in history some online journals are popping up and gaining traction

A bit outdated, but still worth reading (from Nature, no less):

http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/22.html

Like I was saying, knowledge will not ever be free, so this question is a bit moot.

Knowledge is such a broad term that it includes quite a bit of things that just aren't going to get released.

Like how to build stealth bombers. That's knowledge, too.

damian, I feel you may be mixing copyright and patent some here.

abge,

"I will agree, for instance, that most technology patents last much too long. They often aren't nearly as expensive and technology moves so quickly, patents are often worthless by the time they finally expire. "

But it's at least possible that part of why technology moves so quickly is exactly because things are patented (and hence published). Sure, you can't use exactly that idea, but the idea moves others forward too. So if you lessened the incentive by shortening the patent, it could actually slow progress, not speed it up. (You might say it wouldn't lessen the incentive, since the stuff goes obsolete anyway. but then I'd ask why you're bothering to shorten it in the first place).

@ Santa ''Most Academic Journals do not make money, and the money the make is plugged into costs and whatever professional organization supports them. ''

???????
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist

''Who are the most ruthless capitalists in the western world? Whose monopolistic practices make Walmart look like a corner shop and Rupert Murdoch a socialist? You won't guess the answer in a month of Sundays. While there are plenty of candidates, my vote goes not to the banks, the oil companies or the health insurers, but – wait for it – to academic publishers. Theirs might sound like a fusty and insignificant sector. It is anything but. Of all corporate scams, the racket they run is most urgently in need of referral to the competition authorities.''

Thucy, stealth bombers is another discussion.

But damian, 5% ROI? That would never fly in any corporate world. Most companies don't greenlight projects unless there is at least a 15%-20% ROI. Something like that would absolutely kill innovation.

And fulhamish - academic publishers is a very broad term. Does that mean journal publishers? I have a feeling that your article is rather referring to the assholes that try and charge us $200+ per textbook and publish a "new" version every year.

What knowledge do we need that isn't free? I'm struggling to think of good examples.

I run a publishing Company, so am biased on this one :). Well researched/written content usually costs to produce (depending on the topic, some maybe done by enthusiasts) so to be sustainable there must be an income. That can be directly paying for the content, or advertising/leveraging value out of your audience.

I like what Damian has to say above, although I feel inclined to point out that the hegemony surrounding copyright in the West has gotten a bit out of hand.

I take the opposite point of view Al. Theft of copyrighted and patented materials is at an all-time high. They need to be better enforced, if anything.

Yes 5% ROI. You forget that companies don't suddenly stop making money off their product when the patent expires.

It would guarantee that the company has time to recoup their losses and make a little bit of money before anyone moved in on their territory. Getting a much larger ROI than five would occur for all successful products.

I've already outlined the problems with the idea. The minimum ROI for a product that is even remotely successful being small is really not one of them

@King

What type of content do you publish? As someone facing this problem from the other end, could you elaborate some more?

@Semck

I think the recent and ongoing Apple v Samsung case highlights a lot of the problems with patents in the technology sector. Honeywell v Nest is another good example. Are you familiar with either of these?

@damian

I think you'll find a lot of abuse in your new system. For instance, companies will be encouraged to spend vast amounts of money on fluff or on things that can be transferred to new projects, thus making their ROI seem smaller for longer. Also, this will hurt companies that either make very few products or companies that do R&D in high-risk areas, which are important for innovation.

@Abge, the point of me brining up the 5% ROI wasn't because it was a perfect system. Personally I think it would be a terrible system, because of the reason's I listed, which because it would be a bureaucratic nightmare would be rife with abuse, as you suggest. And it has its share of other problems as well.

The point of bringing it up, was to suggest an alterative way of looking at how patent length could be measured.

M. Goldfinger,

Interesting point, indeed one that I could not dispute. Certainly, I know of no better check against abuses than punitive measures against the worst offenders, at least in situations where offenses are committed in a "Wild West" environment.

If I were to agree with your stance on this, I would need to have some belief that the remedy is not worse than the disease. For example, in the case of the copyright holders, they have taken the most unfortunate measures to prevent abuses, going far to eliminate public sympathy which would normally be towards the apparent victims of unlicensed copying. Additionally, certain measures such as the Sunny Bono act tend to render existing statute somewhat laughable. Before I had heard your point of view on the matter, I had felt from a standpoint of reasonable assurance that anyone who expressed public sympathies on the behalf of Big Copyright could safely be classified either as a shill or a contrarian. It is unfortunate that these agencies have sought to extend their reach to regions where copyright law has not traditionally applied. This is reminiscent of some of the abuses committed by colonial powers in the colonial era. Indeed, the scope of such attempted enforcement eclipses the harm originally done to the alleged victims of unlicensed copying. Meanwhile, some companies (e.g. Apple, Vimeo, Pandora) have embraced the "sharing" culture associated with unlicensed copying in a way that actually brings proceeds to the copyright holders.

But Al, beyond the subscription plan or advertising income, the big difference between ahring via copying and what Rhapsody, Pandora, or Slacker does is that they stream the data. The end user doesn't get a copy of the file they can use outside of the software and the software stops working on prescription based plans the moment the person stops paying. That was really one of the biggest issues for the RIAA. Did they go about correcting the problem the right way? Absolutely not. They should have presented a technological solution that satisfied the poor student while still bringing in income for themselves, a plan like the new music innovators developed.

That said, piracy is still stealing. Make all the excuses you want. Art is not free unless the artist chooses to make it so.

M. Draugnar,

Thank you for your response. I think that you and I agree on a number of points pertaining to piracy, yet disagree on whether piracy constitutes theft. My belief is that this difference stems from a disagreement over the definition of theft. For starters, I would like to elaborate on the reason that stealing is considered wrong.

Let us suppose that you, growing hungry, bake a cookie and set it on your window sill to cool. Along comes a miscreant and eats the cookie. This man has given you offense, not because he has eaten a cookie, but because he has eaten a cookie in such a way that has deprived you of the cookie. This is stealing.

When making unauthorized copies of copyrighted materials, an alleged offender is not depriving anyone else access per se and is thus not guilty of stealing, in the way that most people define stealing. Whatever else you may allege a pirate of doing, to accuse them of theft is at best ignorance and is at worst slander.

The other thing, most of Big Copyright rather tends to exaggerate their own usefulness both in the production of art and research. Once upon a time, the army cured diseases, minstrels produced art and rich philanthropists produced scientists. I am by no means suggesting that these persons did this more effectively than Big Copyright. Rather I wish to establish that if Big Pharma, Big Media and Big Science were all to evaporate the effects would be much less drastic to the general populace than these organizations wish for people to believe. Bill Shakespeare wrote plays so he would have something entertaining to produce. Lord Kelvin researched physics so that he could get his name in the history books. Sir Alexander Fleming probably didn't make much money off of penicillin.

The very idea that art or research should be copyrighted is a fairly recent one and by extension has gotten out of hand.

@Al - The difference isn't the definition of theft but a misunderstanding ovrr what is being stolen. Let's say I record an album and self publish a CD (happens all the time nowadays). I sell this CD with the intent to make money from it, but one of those scum bag pirates rips it into MP3s amd put's it on a filesharing site for the whole world. He has deprived me of monetary gain and everyone who downloads a copy of the album is stealing money from my pocket by keeping it in theirs. The theft isn't the music, but the monetary reimbursement the artist is entiteld to for putting forth the effort to begin with. It is no different tham if my clients or your employer decided to not pay us what is due for our efforts on the job. It is theft of money owed and, as such, a civil "crime". Not all theft is criminal, some is civil.

Second point I will male is to say "define recent". Copyright has been around since at least the early 20th Century with the creation of Mickey Mouse. That is probably before yur father was born. So that is hardly recent in terms of modern history.

Finally, you attribute motivation without evidence to back it up on the part of artists. Shakespeare may well have produced plays for the money and not for art's sake. There has been plenty of evidence showing artists like Mozart were motivated differently depending on the piece. The works Mozart did for private benefactors were typically about Tue money while his operas for the people were art for art's sake.

And penicilin was a happy accident so don't attribute it to selfless research.

@Draug

I may be mistaken, but I don't think Record companies make very much money on subscription-based services, like Pandora or Rdio.