Peer reviewed articles are copyrighted, but the studies themselves may be replicated (and in fact are *supposed to*, in order to make sure that the findings are correct).

But even this is changing as better online databases for peer reviewed content are being created, and gaining acceptance. It is possible that in the near future journals such as Nature would be a thing of the past.

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Bill, — publishing is a double edged sword: publishers make way more money off of a writer’s work than the artist himself does, even after costs are taken into account. But on the other hand, for now at least, there is *no way* any author can sell even close to as much as he can or reach nearly as wide an audience without the help of a publisher.

Self publishing is EXTREMELY costly if you want to make any decent sales, and even most of those who do succeed this way eventually turn to big publishers because sales are not even close.

As far as making money though: when you hear that an author gets a, say, $20 000 advance, what you don’t hear is how much of that goes to agents, lawyers, marketing etc.

Most authors, even relatively well known authors, have day jobs, or make money through teaching and seminars. The idea of the “professional author” who spends all his day pondering, writes a book every five or so years and owns a house in Europe is a bit of a myth, as it represents probably less than 1% of working authors. There are exceptions, but 90% of published authors don’t make enough money off book sales to pay the rent, and off that small percent who do, they usually have to keep up with a demand of 1 or 2 or more books per year, because you still won’t be living off the sales of 1 book, even if it did OK.

My point was that this could be the end of the “professional author” altogether, but that that wouldn’t mean that great writing wouldn’t still be produced. Most authors aren’t doing it for the money as it is, so with the advent of e-publishing, they will now be able to reach that mass audience (potentially, at least) without having to turn to big publishers.

But you’re moving to a field with “publish or perish” behavior, and the authors pay the journals to publish the work. Do scientific journals pay authors any royalties?

I think the internet is giving rise to a new Renaissance, where artists are once again connected with the audience, and create for the love of art, or for ambition, as opposed to cranking out one mediocre novel after the next so the publisher gets off my ass.

If Chaucer had a day job, and the time to write one of the most ambitious pieces of poetry in the English language, if Cervantes had a day job, and the same for most of the greatest poets and writers… what’s our excuse?

And with sites like “bandcamp”, many artists are returning to the donation system (get it for free, pay as much as you like, if you like). And the file format is lossless so sound quality is no excuse either.

I am still on my journey to becoming a writer (haven’t dropped my creative writing program), but when the day comes that I feel I have something worth publishing… I still haven’t decided if I will go the publisher way. I’d most likely offer the ebook as “pay if you want, and send it to your friends”, and a self-published hard copy aside.

Self publishing will never bring the sales that a publisher can. But e-books are still a nascent resource, and many authors are getting positive results. Plus, one has 100% control over one’s product.

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I think films is a different business. Movie piracy is wrong because a movie is much bigger than the artists involved. — I studied film for a while, and you learn quickly just how much goes behind a movie. — from catering, to the technical aspect — even a “small” movie involves a team of many professionals who all need to be payed fair salaries. Film is not a “cheap art” like music or literature; film is extremely expensive, and film piracy is stealing, in my eyes.