Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:46:44 GMT

Backlash against OA models?. Stephen Downes, 2004: The Turning Point, Ubiquity v.4,no.46 (January 20-26, 2004). Downes offers an assessment of “issues that will change the way we use the internet.” One section, headlined “Attacking Open Content,” says that media industries will attempt a backlash against freely-available alternatives to their products. Alongside open courseware and open source, Downes mentions “Open access journals are forcing publishers to retrench.” He sees the attack happening on both “legislative” – through intellectual property and legal channels – and “promotional” – or negative advertising on the stability of open content. Finally, Downes calls such attacks “a last desperate gasp before the bottom falls out of the content industry completely… Content is well on its way to being a value-add, something that you might attach to a product, but not something that is the product. Apple uses music to sell iPods, not iPods to sell music.” (Source: The ((sci-tech) library question) [Open Access News]