We like all these alternative business models, and conversations thereof, but let us not forget that there were groups like Wu-Tang Clan doing unique stuff like this as far back as the early 1990s, when (unlike now) the Internet mostly was unknown to the public and it was more socially acceptable (and economically viable) to make money by signing to large labels. Wu-Tang's model wasn't necessarily tiered in the way outlined here, but its model of self-production, self-promotion, collaborative royalty earnings scheme, and spinoff groups and acts was revolutionary at the time. While we know less about her music, Ani DeFranco probably falls into this category as well.
One aspect of this issue that seems to have been missing is what responsibility authors have to preserve at least enough rights in their work so they legally can post a pre-print to their Web site, SSRN, or some other venue besides the print publication. The fact is that published work in traditional print journals does matter for promotion and tenure, and the publishers thus far have a lock on citation (i.e. their citation scheme is the "official" site, and therefore the work that corresponds to that cite is the "official" version). We have no problem with that.
But we think professors need to be more responsible and proactive about this matter. It's not enough for professors to say "Oh, the publisher won't let me publish a preprint online," or "the contract says I can't do it." (The publishers will say they won't allow it because an online version competes with the final version. That's totally bogus, especially since the professor can't get credit for the online, preprint version for promotion and tenure purposes: only the "official," citable, final version counts.)
Professors will raise holy hell if they can't get a specific type of notepad for a meeting, but they'll cower to academic editors who say they can't publish an unofficial, online preprint of an accepted article when (a) there's no competition between the two, and (b) it may take as much as a year *from acceptance for publication* for a journal to publish the final version? It's true this is a problem; it's also true that too many professors have punked out and not stood up for their work or the rights associated with it.
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Interesting (as copycense)
We like all these alternative business models, and conversations thereof, but let us not forget that there were groups like Wu-Tang Clan doing unique stuff like this as far back as the early 1990s, when (unlike now) the Internet mostly was unknown to the public and it was more socially acceptable (and economically viable) to make money by signing to large labels. Wu-Tang's model wasn't necessarily tiered in the way outlined here, but its model of self-production, self-promotion, collaborative royalty earnings scheme, and spinoff groups and acts was revolutionary at the time. While we know less about her music, Ani DeFranco probably falls into this category as well.
Why don't professors actually negotiate? (as copycense)
One aspect of this issue that seems to have been missing is what responsibility authors have to preserve at least enough rights in their work so they legally can post a pre-print to their Web site, SSRN, or some other venue besides the print publication. The fact is that published work in traditional print journals does matter for promotion and tenure, and the publishers thus far have a lock on citation (i.e. their citation scheme is the "official" site, and therefore the work that corresponds to that cite is the "official" version). We have no problem with that.
But we think professors need to be more responsible and proactive about this matter. It's not enough for professors to say "Oh, the publisher won't let me publish a preprint online," or "the contract says I can't do it." (The publishers will say they won't allow it because an online version competes with the final version. That's totally bogus, especially since the professor can't get credit for the online, preprint version for promotion and tenure purposes: only the "official," citable, final version counts.)
Professors will raise holy hell if they can't get a specific type of notepad for a meeting, but they'll cower to academic editors who say they can't publish an unofficial, online preprint of an accepted article when (a) there's no competition between the two, and (b) it may take as much as a year *from acceptance for publication* for a journal to publish the final version? It's true this is a problem; it's also true that too many professors have punked out and not stood up for their work or the rights associated with it.