From owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Thu Dec 6 08:12:35 2001 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id F32E517A43 for ; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 08:12:34 +0000 (GMT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A17D17B7B for ; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 08:12:30 +0000 (GMT) Received: from niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (niobium [193.62.192.41]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E88E17A43 for ; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 08:12:28 +0000 (GMT) Received: (from news@localhost) by niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.8.8) id IAA26424 for btk-mca-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 08:06:34 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk: news set sender to using -f From: athel@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr (Athel Cornish-Bowden) X-Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg Subject: Re: Nature do it again!!! Date: 6 Dec 2001 08:06:32 -0000 Organization: BIOSCI/MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre Lines: 35 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Complaints-To: news@net.bio.net X-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB61417B7B for ; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 08:06:30 +0000 (GMT) X-Received: from ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr (ir2cbm.cnrs-mrs.fr [193.50.234.128]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B69617A82 for ; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 08:06:29 +0000 (GMT) X-Received: from [10.234.32.112] ([10.234.32.112]) by ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr (8.10.1/jtpda-5.3.3) with ESMTP id fB686Fd02383 for ; Thu, 6 Dec 2001 09:06:15 +0100 X-Sender: cornish@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr X-To: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk To: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sender: owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Len Pattenden wrote: >It seems some Universities in the UK are having problems with Nature >subscriptions similar to what we had here in Oz. Are the clowns at Nature >so powerful or are they just so bloody stupid? They also manage to do >something to my acrobat reader so I can't save the files but must print >them or make some god-aweful HTML link (or reconstruct the paper with >figures again in Word). I assume this is to protect their copyright and >stop me sending papers on to other people (though it doesn't really do >this). It has another "advantage" of stuffing up my electronic journal >collection. > I suspect that publishers of journals (especially popular ones like Nature) may well gain as many subscriptions as they lose as a result of "illegal" copying of articles (because of the publicity that this brings automatically), but their commercial people are so stuck in an outdated way of thinking that they are not able to make this analysis. It's interesting that some of the more intelligent journals (like J. Biol. Chem., if I'm not mistaken) now give completely free access to their web sites. I don't believe for a moment they lose money by doing this. Actually, what puzzles me more about Nature and Science is the tremendous amount they must spend on mailing out special offers. I once received seven (yes, seven) offers from Science in a single day. athel -- Athel Cornish-Bowden athel@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr http://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/homepage.htm --- .