<nettime> re: Academic Paper Tigers

[John Horvath <jgy@caesar.elte.hu>]

Comment: Academic Paper Tigers

     One  point  that Hartman failed to elaborate on, which is even more
important  than copyright and quotation, is that of money. The nature of
academia  has  changed, insofar that academic work and research from the
point of individual researchers or academicians is now pursued primarily
as  a  marketable  commodity  than for intellectual purposes. In Europe,
this  trend is clearly illustrated by the position taken by the European
Commission   toward  RTD  in  its  Fifth  Framework  of  the  Telematics
Programme.  The  undercurrents  to  the programme is to refocus Europe's
high  standard  of research and development along corporatist lines, "so
that  Europe's high level of scientific and technological capability can
be  translated more successfully into marketable products and services."
(A  European  Initiative  in  Electronic  Commerce: Communication to the
European  Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and
the  Committee  of the Regions., COM(97) 157, European Commission, April
15, 1997. p. 1. See <http://www.ispo.cec .be/Ecommerce>). Hence, a major
reason  why  scientific  publications  altogether  are not online yet is
because  it's  not  profitable for them to do so. For this reason, these
works will still be available through pay-per-view channels (e.g. print)
or  closed  to the public, accessible only through private Intranets and
Internet 2, the latter being set up exclusively for this purpose.


John
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