In the March issue of Reason Online, Douglas Clement argues that "perfectly competitive markets are entirely capable of rewarding (and thereby stimulating) innovation, making copyrights...superfluous and wasteful." (Thanks to Jason Bobe.)
(PS: This thesis is important for the wider open-access movement but irrelevant to science and scholarship for two reasons. First, scholarly authors typically transfer copyright to journals and therefore don't receive whatever incentive or reward copyright gives to other creators. Second, scholars are not paid for their journal articles, even when they retain copyright. So if the reward of copyright is a temporary monopoly creating a temporary revenue stream, then scholarly authors relinquish it for the sake of advancing knowledge and their careers. This is why open-access to scholarship is attainable immediately, while open access to other content requires fighting and winning either of two hard battles --the battle of copyright reform or the battle of persuading royalty-earners to join scholars in waiving revenue.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/26/2003 02:05:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
