Post on 11-May-2022
The STM Publishing Value Net
An Increasingly Complex Picture
Paris, OECD, Working Party of the Information Economy
Broadband Content Panel, 3 June 2004
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Piero AttanasioAIE – Associazione Italiana Editori
Summary
• One preliminary note
• Bundling vs. un-bundling in the market
• Designing the value net
• The role of SMEs
• The role of standardisation
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Typical on line bundle
Typical printed bundle
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Bundling vs. un-bundling in scientific journals
• Users need to have access to individual articles
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The impact of digital distribution on bundling strategies
• Instead of going toward un-bundling the market privileges sort of “meta-bundling”
• Could be this a lesson also for other sectors?
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The traditional STM publishing value chain
• The traditional value chain is relatively simple
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Au
tho
r
Pu
blisher
Distrib
uto
r
Bib
liogra
phic
da
tab
ase
Lib
rary
Fin
al user
The impact of digital distribution
At the beginning somebody thought that thanks to the Internet there is no need of intermediaries…
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Au
tho
r
Pu
blisher
Distrib
uto
r
Bib
liogra
phic
da
tab
ase
Lib
rary
Fin
al user
… “probably we don’t need the distributor since we provide the access via the Internet” …
The impact of digital distribution
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Au
tho
r
Pu
blisher
Bib
liogra
phic
da
tab
ase
Lib
rary
Fin
al user
… “and probably we don’t need any catalogue: a search engine is sufficient!”…
The impact of digital distribution
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Au
tho
r
Pu
blisher
Lib
rary
Fin
al user
… “and why do we need a library if everybody can have access to everything via the web?”…
The impact of digital distribution
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Au
tho
r
Pu
blisher
Fin
al user
… “the publisher itself is not so relevant, since authors may communicate directly on line”…
The impact of digital distribution
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Au
tho
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Fin
al user
The link between the author and final user is too thin…
It does not work!
The impact of digital distribution
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Au
tho
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Fin
al user
Nobody cares the relations between the parties…
The role of intermediaries increases instead of decreasing
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
• There is empirical evidence that libraries increase their importance
See, Carol Tenopir, User behavior across international and disciplinary boundaries, 2004,http://digital.casalini.it/retreat/
0
50
100
150
1977 1984 1993 2003
No of articles read per scientist
No of personal subscription per scientist
Building the value net
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Scientific communityLibrary
• Libraries need sophisticated technological systems…
IT vendors
• … and value added services to facilitate the access to content (search and retrieval, resolution, etc.) Service
providers
Building the value net
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Scientific communityLibrary
• To have access to content there is also a need of negotiating the IP rights in appropriate way
IT vendors
Service providers
DRM, Clearing houses, RROs
Building the value net
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Scientific communityLibrary
• Digital aggregators help libraries to reach content produced by small players
IT vendors
Service providers
DRM, Clearing houses, RROs
Digital aggregators
Building the value net
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Scientific communityLibrary
• Therefore publishers can use different strategies to reach users
IT vendors
Service providers
DRM, Clearing houses, RROs
Digital aggregators
Publishers
Standardisation and SMEs
• SMEs have great difficulties in the current market
trend
• A key factor is the high transactional costs in
such a complex value net
• Standards can be tools to reduce such costs and
thus to support SMEs
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The role of standards in determining market equilibrium
• What we need is standards for:
• The identification of content
• Metadata for content (and IP rights, and parties)
• What we don’t need is standards for:
• The way to licence the IP rights
• The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) deals with the
first two issues
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The role of standard bodies in the value net
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org
Scientific communityLibrary
IT vendors
Service providers
DRM, Clearing houses, RROs
Digital aggregators
Publishers
Rights negotiation
DOI RA
Metadata exchange
Thank you
piero.attanasio@aie.it
www.medra.orgwww.medra.org