Introduction




(1)
Faculty of Law, Ruhr University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany

 



It was Sir Isaac Newton to acknowledge that if he had seen further, it was by standing on the shoulders of giants (Turnbull 1959). Obviously, the production process in scientific research may be best characterized as being cumulative. Consequently, each scientific work can be seen as a “module” on which others can build, extend or debug.1 This brings the issue of appropriate access to scientific knowledge on the agenda. Access to the literature is provided by means of disseminating academic works via journal publications. The predominant journal publishing model, meanwhile, reverts to copyright privileges as a lever for the emergence of (commercial) publishers and printers. However, a recent debate in the (economic) literature reveals a growing dissatisfaction with this traditional publishing model.

There are eventually two reasons why the role of copyright for academic works is currently intensively being debated: First and foremost, the prices for academic journals have increased dramatically in the last two decades. Ramello (2010) finds that between 1986 and 2004 serial expenditures and serial unit costs have increased by 273 % and 188 %, respectively. At the same time, the consumer price index increased by only 73 %. In some disciplines—e.g. physics and chemistry journals—subscription prices even rose by more than 600 % (Edlin and Rubinfeld 2004). The vast increase of subscription prices was primarily driven by new options for publishers to excessively engage in price discrimination. In this respect, the copyright system provides the necessary prerequisite for such pricing strategies as it grants an exclusive right to control access to journal content. Moreover, the digital revolution ushered in by the internet eventually increased the options for price discrimination as it provided with the technological means for customization, versioning and bundling of information goods.2 The increase of journal subscription prices, finally, has significantly affected university libraries in their ability to subscribe to journals.3 Budget cuts at academic institutions in several countries have even worsened the situation and plunged (university) libraries into a serious crisis (serials crisis). Second and more interestingly, the copyright system that allows for such price settings seems rather negligible in the context of scientific research. While copyright seeks to stimulate the creation of works in art, literature and science by granting exclusivity as a means to appropriate a sufficient portion of the consumer rent, scientists are rather motivated by reputation gains from publishing.4 In fact, researchers are not primarily interested in financial gains from selling their research results—which are most often negligible anyway5—but in indirect rewards which accrue by means of reputation or CV-effects (Watt 2010, p. 1). The latter aspect is particularly relevant for the big body of peer-reviewed scholarly articles and their preprints. Peter Suber refers to these works as royalty-free literature, which has two important implications: First, the publisher receives the work from the authors at no costs. Second, the author should (ceteris paribus) be open to the publishing mode (open or closed access) as she is not losing any revenue (Suber 2012, p. 9). It is this type of literature that we will have in mind when analyzing the impact of copyright versus open access for the scholarly system as a whole.

With the advent of the internet and the birth of alternative business models for publishing academic works—especially the Open Access (OA) model—the aforementioned observations gained particular interest in the public debate. In particular, open access seeks to provide unrestricted (free) access to scientific literature via “the public internet, permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of these articles […] without financial, legal or technical barriers […].” (BOAI 2002). Especially academic associations’ but also individual researchers’ initiatives have since advocated the new OA movement as a counterbalance to the traditional copyright model. Since the beginning of the new millennium several international and national initiatives—like the “Budapest Open Access Initiative” (2002),6 the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing” (2003)7 and the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in Science and Humanities” (2003)8—have tempted to foster open access to scientific knowledge. The vast increase in the number of OA journals9 (gold road) and the spread of open archives and repositories like SSRN (green road) clearly show the relevance that the OA movement has gained in academic publishing throughout the last decade. As most striking in the OA debate, scholars have been stressing the somehow preposterous nature in science. Accordingly, universities are paying twice: Once in salaries for the production of knowledge and again for the high subscription prices for journals to enable researchers to read their works. Journal publishers as such are acting as intermediaries as they provide with the selection process to prevent from adverse selection (Akerlof’s lemons).10 Thus, the acceptance for journal publication can be seen as a form of branding to signal the quality of a certain paper, where the reputation or ranking of a journal provides with an objective tool for valuation. However, the refereeing and review process as well as editing and formatting tasks is primarily provided by volunteers of the scientific community. So, it is actually the researchers themselves that provide journals with esteem as e.g. the names of well-known professionals appear in the editorial board. In this context, Bergstrom (2001) argues that a fully subsidized edit and review process for content to be published in expensive commercial journals hardly satisfy the criterion of economic efficiency. The added value of paying publishers by means of a transfer of copyright may hence be questioned. In the end, it may be asked as to whether the traditional copyright model or the open access model is better suited to the norms, incentives and organizational structure in the market for science (Eger and Scheufen 2012b, p. 53).

As a means of (economic) analysis, the topic has only recently aroused interest among scholars in the field of “law and economics”.11 Most attention was directed to a paper by Shavell (2010) who raised the question of actually eliminating copyright for academic works. Shavell’s model concludes as follows: (1) researchers are motivated by reputation, which increases in readership, (2) readership will likely be higher under open access and hence scholarly esteem, (3) the publishing costs from an “author pays” principle under open access will be covered by most universities, and (4) there are several reasons why a shift towards open access publishing will not be smooth without legal action (Eger and Scheufen 2012b, p. 55). Ever since, several papers have forwarded a lively debate in academia by reconsidering some of the modelling assumptions from which Shavell (2010) crucially derives his conclusions, showing a much more differentiated picture on the impact of a regime change. Accordingly, several questions—especially with respect to the international dimension of this intriguing question, e.g. the role of OA in developing countries—are still unresolved.

This work addresses some of these questions by providing with a comprehensive analysis on certain issues regarding the superiority of a copyright versus an open access regime in academic publishing. In particular, we will focus on the international dimension of this intriguing question. Standing on the shoulders of Shavell and others, the consequences of a regime change will be analyzed. A closer look at the international political economy of scientific research will particularly address issues in developing countries, seeking a bridge in the “digital divide” argumentation to involve all nations in science. Finally, a comprehensive analysis of copyright legislation and its alternatives in the light of international IP agreements offers prospects on the future of scientific publishing.

The remainder of the thesis is organized as follows: Chap. 2 will introduce to some fundamental economics, sketching the line of reasoning in the economics of copyright and the economics of science and revealing implications by comparing both systems. Chapter 3 shall provide an understanding of the characteristics and the market structure in the market for science and academic publishing as well as to the history and evolution of the OA movement. A comprehensive analysis of both regimes is Chap. 4 In this context, we will first focus on the effectiveness of either regime in stimulating research and producing social welfare in a purely global science community. In the following, policy implications and reforms of IP legislation at the international level are being discussed, especially accounting for the perspective of developing countries. Chapter 5 summarizes possible scenarios for the future of academic publishing. We will conclude in Chap. 6, stressing an agenda of seven recommendations to be considered for the future of academic publishing.


Bibliography



Abadie, A., Diamond, A., & Hainmueller, J. (2010). Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: Estimating the effect of California’s tobacco control program. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 105(490), 493–505.


Acs, Z. J., Audretsch, D. B., & Feldman, M. P. (1994). R&d spillovers and recipient firm size. Review of Economics and Statistics, 76(2), 336–340.


Ahmed, A. (2007). Open access towards bridging the digital divide – Policies and strategies for developing countries. Information Technology for Development, 13(4), 337–361.


Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for ‘lemons’: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500.


Akerlof, G. A., Hahn, R., Litan, R. E., Arrow, K. J., Bresnahan, T. F., Buchanan, J. M., Coase, R. H., Cohen, L. R., Friedman, M., Green, J. R., Hazlett, T. W., Hemphill, C. S., Noll, R. G., Schmalensee, R., Shavell, S., Varian, H. R., & Zeckhauser, R. J. (2002). The copyright term extension act of 1998: An economic analysis. AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Brief 02-1. http://​www.​aei-brookings.​org/​admin/​authorpdfs/​page.​php?​id=​16.


Allison, P. D., & Stewart, J. A. (1974). Productivity differences among scientists: Evidence for accumulative advantage. American Sociological Review, 39(4), 596–606.


Andreff, W., & Szymanski, S. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of the economics of sport. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.


Andreoli-Versbach, P., & Mueller-Langer, F. (2013). Open access to data: An ideal professed but not practiced. RatSWD Working Paper Series No. 215. http://​papers.​ssrn.​com/​sol3/​papers.​cfm?​abstract_​id=​2224146.


Annan, K. (2004). Science for all nations. Science, 303, 925.


Armstrong, C., DeBeer, J., Kawooya, D., Prabhala, A., & Schonwetter, T. (Eds.) (2010). Access to knowledge in Africa: The role of copyright. Claremont: UCT Press.


Arrow, K. (1962). Economic welfare and the allocation of resources for invention. In R. Nelson (Ed.), The rate and direction of inventive activity (pp. 609–624). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.


ARWU (2012). Academic ranking of world universities-2012. http://​www.​shanghairanking.​com/​ARWU2012.​html.


Audretsch, D. B., & Feldman, M. P. (1996). R&d spillovers and the geography of innovation and production. American Economic Review, 86(3), 630–640.


Bakos, Y., & Brynjofsson, E. (1999). Bundling information goods: Pricing, profits and efficiency. Management Science, 45(12), 1613–1630.


Bakos, Y., & Brynjofsson, E. (2000). Bundling and competition on the internet. Marketing Science, 19(1), 63–82.


Bargheer, M. (2006). Open access und universitätsverlage: Auswege aus der publication crisis. In Internetökonomie der Medienbranche. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen.


Benkler, Y. (2002). Coase’s penguin, or, linux and the “nature of the firm”. The Yale Law Journal, 112(3), 369–446.


Bently, L. (2010). Introduction to part i: The history of copyright. In L. Bently, U. Suthersanen, & P. Torremans (Eds.), Global copyright. Three hundred years since the statute of anne, from 1709 to cyberspace. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.


Bently, L., & Kretschmer, M. (2013). Primary sources on copyright (1450–1900). www.​copyrighthistory​.​org.


Berger, K. P. (1996). Lex mercatoria doctrine and the unidroit principles of international commercial contracts. Law and Policy in International Business, 28, 943–990.


Bergstrom, T. C. (2001). Free labor for costly journals. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15(3), 183–198.


Bergstrom, T. C., Courant, P., & McAffee, R. P. (2013). Big deal contract project. http://​www.​econ.​ucsb.​edu/​~tedb/​Journals/​BundleContracts.​html.


Bergstrom, T. C., & McAffee, R. P. (2013). Summary statistics. http://​www.​hss.​caltech.​edu/​~mcafee/​Journal/​.


Bernius, S. (2010). The impact of open access on the management of scientific knowledge. Online Information Review, 34(4), 583–603.


Bernius, S., & Hanauske, M. (2009). Open access to scientific literature-increasing citations as an incentive for authors to make their publications freely available. In Hawaii International Conference on System Science (HICSS-42).


Bernius, S., Hanauske, M., Koenig, W., & Dugall, B. (2009). Open access models and their implications for the players on the scientific publishing market. Economic Analysis and Policy, 39(1), 103–115.


Besen, S. M. (1986). Private copying, reproduction costs, and the supply of intellectual property. Information Economics and Policy, 2(1), 5–22.


Besen, S. M., & Raskind, L. J. (1989). New technologies and intellectual property: Collectives that collect. Technical report, Rand Corporation, RAND Report No. R-3751-MF.


Besen, S. M., & Raskind, L. J. (1991). An introduction to the law and economics of intellectual property. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), 3–27.


Bitton, M. (2012). Implementing the public sector information directive. European Intellectual Property Review, 34(2), 75–86.


Bjoerk, B.-C. (2004). Open access to scientific publications. An analysis of the barriers to change. Information Research, 9(2), 1–17.


Bjoerk, B.-C. (2012). The hybrid model for open access publication of scholarly articles: A failed experiment? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(8), 1496–1504.


BOAI (2002). Budapest open access initiative. http://​www.​soros.​org/​openaccess/​read.​shtml.


Boldrine, M., & Levine, D. K. (2002). The case against intellectual property. American Economic Review, 92(2), 209–212.


Boldrine, M., & Levine, D. K. (2005). Intellectual property and the efficient allocation of social surplus from creation. Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, 2(1), 45–67.


Boldrine, M., & Levine, D. K. (2008). Against intellectual property (1st ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press


Börsenverein. (2011). Börsenverein des deutschen buchhandels. stellungnahme zum gesamtkonzept für die informationsinfrastruktur in deutschland (kii-papier), frankfurt.


Bosch, X. (2009). A reflection on open-access, citation counts, and the future of scientific publishing. Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis, 57(2), 91–93.


Breyer, S. (1970). The uneasy case for copyright: A study of copyright in books, photocopies and computer programs. Harvard Law Review, 84, 281–351.


Brody, T., Harnad, S., & Les, C. (2006). Earlier web usage statistics as predictors of later citation impact. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 57(8), 1060–1072.


Bundesratsbeschluss. (2013). Mehr open access in der wissenschaft.


Calabresi, G., & Melamed, D. A. (1972). Property rules, liability rules, and inalienability: One view of the cathedral. Harvard Law Review, 85(6), 1089–1128.


Callon, M. (1994). Is science a public good? Fifth Mullins lecture. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 19(4), 395–424.


Campanario, J. M. (1996). Using citation classics to study the incidence of serendipity in scientific discovery. Scientometrics, 20, 4–21.


Campbell. (1994). Campbell, aka skywalker, et al. v. acuff-rose music, inc. (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569. http://​www.​law.​cornell.​edu/​supct/​html/​92-1292.​ZS.​html.


Card, D., & Krueger, A. B. (1994). Minimum wages and employment: A case study of the fast-food industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. American Economic Review, 84(4), 772–793.


Castells, M. (2000). The information age: The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell.


Cavaleri, P., Keren, M., Ramello, G. B., & Valli, V. (2009). Publishing an e-journal on a shoe string: Is it a sustainable project? Economic Analysis and Policy, 39(1), 89–101.


Cetto, M. A. (2001). The contribution of electronic communication to science – Has it lived up to its promise? In Proceedings to the 2nd ICSU-UNESCO International Conference on Electronic Publishing in Science, 20–23 February, UNESCO House, Paris.


Chang, C. C. (2003). Business models for open access journals publishing. Online Information Review, 30(6), 699–713.


Choi, J. P. (2012). Bundling information goods. In M. Peitz & J. Waldfogel (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the digital economy (pp. 273–305). Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Christian, G. E. (2008). Open access initiative and the developing world. African Journal of Library Archives and Information Science, 18(2).


Coase, R. (1960). The problem of social cost. Journal of Law and Economics, 3(1), 1–44.


Coccia, M. (2006). Economic and social studies of scientific research: Nature and origins. Working Paper CERIS-CNR, 8(7).


Cofer, C. N., & Apply, M. H. (1967). Motivation: Theory and research. New York: Wiley.


Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1989). Innovation and learning: The two faces of r&d. Economic Journal, 99(397), 569–596.


Congleton, R. D., Hillman, A. L., & Konrad, K. (2008). 40 years of research on rent seeking 1. New York: Springer.


Conney-McQuat, S., Busch, S., & Kahn, D. (2010). Open access publishing: A viable solution for society publishers. Learned Publishing, 23(2), 101–105.


Coolidge, H. J., & Lord, R. H. (1932). Archibald cary coolidge: Life and letters. New York: Boston


Cornish, W. (2010). The statute of anne 1709-10: Its historical setting. In L. Bently, U. Suthersanen, & P. Torremans (Eds.), Global copyright. Three hundred years since the statute of anne, from 1709 to cyberspace. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.


Corrigan, R., & Rogers, M. (2005). The economics of copyright. World Economics, 6(3), 153–174.


Craig, I., Plume, A. M., McVeigh, M. E., Pringle, J., & Amin, M. (2007). Do open access articles have greater citation impact? A critical review of the literature. Publishing research consortium. Journal of Informetrics, 1(3), 239–248.


Crane, D. (1965). Scientists at major and minor universities: A study of productivity and recognition. American Sociological Review, 30(5), 699–714.


Csikszentmihalyi, H. (1974). Beyond boredom and anxiety: The experience of play in work and games. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Inc.


Dahlberg, B. (2011). Orphan works problem: Preserving access to the cultural history of disadvantaged groups. Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice 20, 275.


Dalrymple, D. (2003). Scientific knowledge as a global public good: Contributions to innovation and the economy. In J. M. Esanu, & P. F. Uhlir (Eds.), The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain: Proceedings of a Symposium (pp. 35–49). Washington: National Academic Press.


Dasgupta, P., & David, P. A. (1987). Information disclosure and the economics of science and technology. In G. R. Feiwel (Ed.), Arrow and the ascent of modern economic theory. New York: Macmillan Press.


Dasgupta, P., & David, P. A. (1994). Towards a new economics of science. Research Policy, 23(4), 487–521.


David, P. A. (1993). Intellectual property institutions and the panda’s thumb: Patents, copyrights and trade secrets in economic theory and history. In NRC (pp. 19–61).


Davis, P. M. (2009). Author-choice open access publishing in the biological and medical literature. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(1), 3–8.


Davis, P. M. (2011). Open access, readership, citations: A randomized controlled trial of scientific journal publishing. The FASEB Journal, 25, 1–6.


Davis, P., Lewenstein, B., Simon, D., Booth, J., & Connolly, M. (2008). Open access publishing, article downloads and citations. British Medical Journal, 337, a568.


Davis, P. M., Lewenstein, B. V., Simon, D. H., Booth, J. G., Connolly, M. J. L. (2008). Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: Randomized control trial. British Medical Journal, 337, a568. http://​www.​bmj.​com/​cgi/​content/​full/​337/​jul31_​1/​a568.


Deci, E. L., Koester, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668.


Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Press.


Deene, J. (2010). The influence of the statute of anne on Belgian copyright law. In L. Bently, U. Suthersanen, & Torremans, P. (Eds.), Global copyright. Three hundred years since the statute of anne, from 1709 to cyberspace. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.


Demsetz, H. (1970). The private production of public goods. Journal of Law and Economics, 13, 293–306.


Demsetz, H. (2009). Creativity and the economics of the copyright controversy. Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues, 6(2), 5–12.


Dewatripont, M., Ginsburgh, V., Legros, P., Walckiers, A., Devroey, J. P., Dujardin, M., et al. (2006). Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication markets in Europe. Brussels: European Commission.


Diamond, A. M. (1986). The life-cycle research productivity of mathematicians and scientists. Journal of Gerontology, 41(4), 520–525.


Diamond, A. M. (2000). The complementarity of scientometrics and economics. In B. Cronin & H. B. Adkins (Eds.), The web of knowledge: A festschrift in honor of eugene garfield (pp. 321–336). New Jersey: Information Today.


Diamond, A. M. (2004). Zvi grichiles’s contributions to the economics of technology and growth. Economics of Innovation and New Technology, 13(4), 365–397.


Diamond, A. M. (2005). Measurement, incentives and constraints in stigler’s economics of science. The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 12(4), 635–661.


DMCA (1998). The digital millenium copyright act of 1998. U.S. copyright office summary. http://​www.​copyright.​gov/​legislation/​dmca.​pdf.


Donahue, C. (2004). Medieval and early modern lex mercatoria: An attempt at the probatio diabolica. Chicago Journal of International Law 5, 21


ECReport. (2006). Study on the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication markets in Europe. EC Report. http://​ec.​europa.​eu/​research/​science-society/​pdf/​scientific-publication-study_​en.​pdf.


Edlin, A. S., & Rubinfeld, D. L. (2004). Exclusion or efficient pricing? The “big deal” bundling of academic journals. Antitrust Law Journal, 72, 128–159.


Edlin, A. S., & Rubinfeld, D. L. (2005). Competition policy for journals: The bundling of academic journals. American Economic Review, 95(2), 441–445.


Eger, T. (2013). Einige bemerkungen zur aktuellen diskussion um das urheberrecht aus ökonomischer sicht. In H. Curti & T. Effertz (Eds.), Die ökonmische Analyse. Entwicklung und Perspektive einer interdisziplinären Wissenschaft (pp. 121–140). New York: Peter Land Academic Publishing.


Eger, T., & Scheufen, M. (2012a). Das urheberrecht im zeitenwandel: Von gutenberg zum cyberspace. In C. Müller, F. Trosky, & M. Weber (Eds.), Ökonomik als Allgemeine Theorie Menschlichen Verhaltens: Grundlagen und Anwendungen, Schriften zu Ordnungsfragen der Witzschaft (Vol. 94, pp. 151–180). Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius.


Eger, T., & Scheufen, M. (2012b). The past and the future of copyright law: Technological change and beyond. In J. De Mot (Ed.), Liber Amicorum Boudewijn Bouckaert, forthcoming (pp. 37–65). Bruges: de Keuren.


Eger, T., Scheufen, M., & Meierrieks, D. (2013). The determinants of open access publishing: Survey evidence from Germany. SSRN Working Paper.


Eger, T., Scheufen, M., & Meierrieks, D. (2014). The determinants of open access publishing: Survey evidence from countries in the Mediterranean open access network (medoanet). SSRN Working Paper.


Ehrenberg, R. G. (1992). The flow of new doctorates’. Journal of Economic Literature, 30(2), 830–875.


Elkin-Koren, N. (2006). Creative commons: A sceptical view of a worthy pursuit. In B. P. Hugenholtz & L. Guibault (Eds.), The future of the public domain (pp. 1–21). Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.


Ethiraj, S. K., & Levinthal, D. A. (2009). Hoping for a to z while rewarding only a: Complex organizations and multiple goals. Organization Science, 20, 4–21.


Evans, J., & Reimer, J. (2009a). Open access and global participation in science. Science, 323, 1025.


Evans, J., & Reimer, J. (2009b). Open access and global participation in science, supporting online material. Science, 323, 72–75.


Eysenbach, G. (2006). Citation advantage of open access articles. PLoS Biology, 4(5), 692–698.


Feather, J. (1980). The book trade in politics: The making of the copyright act of 1710. Publishing History, 8, 19–44.


Feess, E., & Scheufen, M. (2013). Academic copyright in the publishing game: A contest perspective. SSRN Working Paper.


Feess, E., & Scheufen, M. (2014). Copyright versus open access for academic works: A non-strategic model on quality provision. Mimeo.


Finch, J. (2012). Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: How to expand access to research publications. Report of the working group on expanding access to published research findings-the Finch group. http://​www.​researchinfonet.​org/​wp-content/​uploads/​2012/​06/​Finch-Group-report-FINAL-VERSION.​pdf.


Fiscor, M. (2002). The Law of Copyright and the Internet-the 1996 WIPO treaties, their interpretation and implementation. Oxford: Oxford University Press


Förster, A. (2008). Fair Use: Ein Systemvergleich der Schrankengeneralklausel des US-amerikanischen Copyright Act mit dem Schrankenkatalog des deutschen Urheberrechtsgesetzes. Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck.


Freedman, P. (1960). The principles of scientific research (2nd ed.). New York: Pergamon Press (1st ed. 1949)


Frey, B.S. (1992). Tertium datur: Pricing, regulating and intrinsic motivation. Kyklos, 45, 161–185.

Only gold members can continue reading. Log In or Register to continue