Posted By Bob Pedley
Here here Ian,

My company pays around £40k per year for the Technical Indexes subscription. This is accessible globally across our projects. If safety professionals wish to promote IOSH, as I am sure the institution would wish us to, then access to publications should be possible through these subscribed routes. I am sure it is only a matter of negotiating a suitable fee.

Bob

Posted By Website Co-ordinator
IOSH publishes a comprehensive range of free information and technical toolkits – and this guidance literature is set to expand this year. It is readily available in both on-line and print formats. Access to these information documents is also offered, free, to organisations such as Technical Indexes.

Considerable development time and costs are associated with our small book portfolio and, as a charity publisher, the royalties offered by database providers such as Technical Indexes simply would not reflect this input. We advise members not to waive copyright on books they have authored.

Caroline Brookes

Head of Publishing

Posted By Allan St.John Holt
Well, since my name has been mentioned I suppose nobody up there will mind if I comment on this despite my obvious interest. Firstly, IOSH doesn't have the copyright in Principles and therefore can only do what it is allowed to within the therms of the publishing agreement with my company (not directly me, but just for the record). Nevertheless what Caroline says is quite correct.

Secondly, TI used to publish Principles on their CD set, and had not asked me about doing so. Even though my company acted for the first 8 years as their technical consultant. They do pay a small fee (if requested to do so) but it is very small espcially in comparison with potential lost sales.

Thirdly, I'm in the same position as any other author. It's hard enough to prevent mass photocopying without effectively giving the material away for free. No different to any other product really.

Having said all that, many readers of this Forum will know that I have often volunteered to email them samples of my work without any question of payment, and for that matter I always give the OK when (on the rare occasions) people (usually from colleges) write or phone and ask for permission to copy Sections from the book for their students. For me it's a question of balance. On the (also rare) occasions that IOSH and I have uncovered a major photocopying racket we have taken action to prevent it. It's called protecting your copyright and is an expected legal step because if you don't a court could find that you had waived it entirely by failing to take action.

Finally, it's worth noting in passing the fact that without the quarter million a year IOSH makes from Principles, many things would have to go up, not least the annual subs! Also, the price hasn't changed for 10 years, quite deliberately, and I think it represents excellent value when compared to other publications on the market covering the same breadth of material. HSE Books items are a good example.

I hope this doesn't turn into a lengthy debate, but I thought you would allow me my say this once.

Allan