My first two posts on Access Copyright this week focused on its decision to stop pay-per-use digital licensing in the wake of the Copyright Board’s interim tariff and the economics behind the copyright collective. This post explains why the situation is going to get worse and offers (admittedly unsolicited) advice about what to do about it (all three posts available as a single PDF).

The Access Copyright’s Board response to the Friedland Report is one of the few public sources that breaks down its revenue and distribution (though it is no longer posted online). In 2005, its licensing revenue came from the following sources:

The percentages may have changed slightly, but there is every reason to believe they are fairly similar today. In the Access Copyright application for an interim tariff, it told the Board that “almost 50 percent” of its licensing revenue comes from universities and colleges.

The obvious problem is that Access Copyright is dependent on education for roughly 75 percent of its revenues. In the years ahead, much of this is likely to disappear. I’ve already argued that universities and colleges will increasingly walk away from Access Copyright as they pursue other licensing approaches for their materials (universities are spending over $100 million a year on site licenses via CRKN alone). 

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