The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Richard Price, founder of Academia.edu, yo talk about how academic publishing works today (4:00), doing to publishing what Napster did to music (6:15) starting out with banana cakes (7:20), raising his first round of money (11:45), going from 50 sign-ups-a-day to 72m users (12:30), getting to 20m research papers uploaded (14:15), taking on a centuries-old business model (15:45), the importance of prestige (19:55), quality control (21:05), the last bastion in publishing untouched by the Internet (25:30), and bankrolling free access with a core of subscribers (28:15). PLUS: Jeffery Mackie-Mason, head librarian at the University of California, comes on to talk about his showdown with Elsevier over the publisher’s “extortionary” prices (32:10), how subscription rates have soared (35:05), unleashing scientific progress (37:15), playing hardball (39:00), how publishing giants have defended their turf (40:45), reaching a tipping point (42:45), the publishers beginning to break ranks (46:10), and the key to the traditional players’ power (47:15).
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