Dear Online Journal Editors,
If you currently allow free viewership of the content of your journal, why bother to insist on copyright?
Copyright (in my understanding) not only allows a person an actionable course in the event someone uses his or her intellectual property without permission, it also allows that person an actionable course if someone steals and profits from such property. (Correct me if I'm wrong about this.)
So here's what I'm puzzling over editors, when a person chooses to offer his / her intellectual property for free viewership and dissemination (as in the case of free online journals, and other types of free online publications--not talking about blogs, they're too messy) isn't that person essentially doing away with his / her copyright protection?
And here's something else I've been puzzling over.... Okay, I get that the person offering his or her work for free may not really care how it is shared, as long as it is shared. Trust me, I understand the nobility in sharing without borders, but isn't there nobility in asking the viewer to pay a fee for viewing as well?
Are we to assume that the writers / poets / critics / artists whose fare we read and enjoy in these free access journals are all wealthy and can afford to disseminate their hard work for free? Isn't there a monetary cost involved in writing, painting, photography, crafting, and publishing? Don't these people have bills to pay? And if they do, wouldn't it be nice if a fee from the publication and viewership of their work could pay a bill or two?
I ask these questions because I'm rethinking my original belief in free access to everything and all internet. The internet is without a doubt a credible place for certain information and a legitimate place for an artist to publish his or her work, so why not let it be a credible, legitimate place to pay for such information and for the pleasure of viewing an artist's work? Some journals already require a fee for viewing, and readers pay. Might those journals that offer free viewing be sending the message that they are either afraid of competition--that readers will go somewhere else rather than pay--or the work they publish is not good enough for folks to shell out a fee for?
I'm not asking these questions to criticize any online journal in particular; I absolutely love the ones I linked to (see left sidebar), and I'd readily pay a fee (a small one, don't kill me now) to view their content. You see, I'm considering all the possibilities and impossibilities involved in starting an online journal of writing on and about Guyana... I raise these questions and invite responses so I can decide whether or not it's a crappy idea.
