2016 is known as the year of the payment of knowledge。
A series of landmark events brought the payment of knowledge to the fore. On 15 may of that year, the fee-paying voice-answer platform went online. Many celebrities and experts in various fields have joined this one-minute pay-and-answer model. Immediately thereafter, the founder of the logic thinking, ro jin-woo, created the idea of “getting” an app and also “getting to live”。
By march 2017, the soy petals network had launched its down payment product, soy petal time, while the founder of the call announced the official online subscription of micro-intelligence public, which culminated in the payment of knowledge。
In fact, before the era of knowledge-paying was over, a company had let the money go to thousands of households. Almost every university student has heard of its name, and most universities and scientific institutions are required to pay for the right to use it。
Based on a large database and a “knowledge-paying” model, the company collected up to $380 million in 2010 and sustained a steady and high annual increase of more than 10 per cent, with the māori rate never below 50 per cent. In 2021, the māori rate stood at $1. 289 billion and the māori rate at 53. 35 per cent。
This knowledge-paying company, the co-knowledge network (beijing) technology ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “knowledge network”). But in 2021, the shares of the parent company lost a huge amount of $1. 879 billion while guarding such a tree. Moreover, the controversial icn operation has attracted regulatory attention and the antimonopoly will probably become the “sword of damocles” hanging over the icn。
One, one, one, one, one, one, one, two, three, three, three, three
The network, once again, has roused public opinion。
On 17 april, an internal mail was circulated online at the central college of science and technology, which stated that the total cost of ordering the icsu database in 2021 was tens of millions. Renewed costs in 2022 remain “close to millions” and, owing to the high fees, the central college was unable to afford them and was forced to shut down。
On the same day, the head of the central college of medicine, in an interview with the media, stated that the information was true. However, the network then responded by saying that “the news is false”。
On 19 april, the network's official communication stated that, in 2022, the centre for documentation and intelligence of the central institute of science and technology had adapted its procurement model from a unified centralized procurement model to a joint procurement model for missions in need. Following friendly consultations, work is well under way to adapt the ordering model for the icn database, with the contents selected by the chambers, and it is planned to complete the grouping in the near future, sign the agreement and launch the 2022 service。
Despite each other's insistence on the word, it was a fact that the network had caused controversy, and that was not the first time that the network had drawn public attention to the issue of fees。
In december 2021, zhao dexiang, a retired professor of the 89-year-old university of economics and law of china, discovered that the network had built up more than 160 academic literature without authorization, that the author himself had to pay for downloading it, and that the angry elderly would take it to court. In the end, zhao dexiang was awarded over $700,000。
Following the proceedings, the network stated that the author service platform had been opened in 2019 and that all authors were able to use their work free of charge for an indefinite period of time after registration。
The authors of the papers are not paid, but are targeted at individual users and the vast majority of the literature is charged. The network's “standard table for fees” shows that the full text of regular digitally published journals and conference papers are charged a download fee of $0. 5 per page, $7. 5 per master's degree thesis and $ 9. 5 per doctorate. This is also based on a downward revision of the cost of downloading thesis, which was preceded by a doctoral thesis of $25 and a master's thesis of $15。
The network fees project is not just in the paper area. There are fees for downloading the contents of such tools as yearbooks, statistical yearbooks, dictionaries, patents, scientific and technological results, etc. Even academic pictures cost $2 to be used。
The above fees are for individual users. In the case of students or teachers in higher education, it is not costly to look at many of the literature in the downloading network in schools. This is due to the fact that universities have already purchased databases from the network, which are generally carried out once a year。
The value planet (id:valueplanet) consulted the chinese government's procurement network on the results of the award related to icrin. In 2022, the university of qinghua was set at $1. 8803 million and the wuhan polytechnic university at $12. 78 million. In 2021, the procurement price at beijing polytechnic university was even 2. 94 million yuan。
It can be seen that the costs of renewal vary from institution to institution. But the same thing is that prices rise every year. For example, procurement costs rose from $4. 45 million in 2019 to $654 million in 2022, or nearly 50 per cent in four years; from $1. 355 million to $1. 5 million, or about 10. 7 per cent; and from $1. 15 million to $1. 27 million, or about 10. 4 per cent, at wuhan polytechnic university。
In response to these price increases, a number of higher education institutions have also publicly “complained”. In march 2016, the library of beijing university issued a bulletin stating that “the library is currently engaged in intensive negotiations because of the high price increase in the knowledge network database, which, as of 31 march 2016, could be interrupted at any time by the end of the previous year's contract”
In december 2018, the library of taisei university of technology issued a bulletin stating that “since the price and mode of use of the database were not consistent with isis, our teachers and students have suspended access to the isis series of databases as of 1 january 2019”
Since then, the university has also shifted to the network's competitors — the all china data knowledge service and the web chinese journal service. The results of this year's winning bid show that the winning price for the square is $200,000 and the winning price for the whip is only $80,000. In contrast, the price quoted by the network in the list of winning bids amounted to $600,000。
2. Big resources
So, why can you sell internet so expensive? The most immediate reason is the vast academic resources available to the network。
According to the official network, there are currently 10320 periodicals published in mainland china, with a total of over 60 million full-text literature, of which 8439 are academic journals and 1978 are core periodicals, representing a 99 per cent intake rate. Other platforms have an unmatched advantage in weighting and literature。
But know net is not without competition. The web shows that the database contains more than 8,400 periodicals, of which more than 3300 are core; and the web shows that china's database of scientific and technical periodicals contains more than 15,000 periodicals and a total of more than 38 million periodicals. With regard to the paper database, it is clear that the network's competitors are not yet able to shake the status of the network。
According to sin, there are now more than 1,600 overseas institutional users in 60 countries and territories, and more than 32,000 in mainland china, with core users covering key universities, research institutions, government think tanks, businesses, hospitals, public libraries. In 2021, more than 200 million individual readers of the network received more than 16 million daily visits and over 2. 33 billion full-text downloads。
The knowledge network can gain current market status and is relevant to the history of the knowledge network。
Now the knowledge network we know is a narrow concept, the first of which is china's intellectual infrastructure projectNar knowledge infrastructure, cnki。
In 1995, the “cd-rom version” of the network, the chinese academic journal, was officially created and produced on 30 january 1996。
In 1998, the world bank introduced the concept of a “national knowledge infrastructure”, and in june of the following year, the china journals network, launched by the university of qinghua and qinghua, began to serve online, which is today's predecessor。
Because of its “knowledge sharing”, it facilitates academic research and knowledge dissemination. As a result, the state has included it in the torch programme, which, in addition to the academic resources selflessly contributed by a large number of institutions of higher education, is supported by ministries such as the ministry of education, the ministry of science and technology, the press and publications department and the national copyright authority。
In 2001, with the expansion of network bandwidth and the development of internet technology, cnki established data exchange centres in cities on the basis of two central sites. Cnki moved from cd-rom to the network。
By 2003, the chinese periodicals network had developed into a web of knowledge services with a collection of periodicals, newspapers, doctoral degree thesis, conference papers, books, yearbooks and teaching materials for multimedia education. In the same year, the chinese periodical network was renamed the china knowledge network。
Currently, the network not only has a large volume of chinese literature, but also includes databases from universities such as cambridge, oxford, and science and technology databases in the united states, korea and france, which serve as an international knowledge resource platform. But to share a huge database, it would be costly。
3 monopoly rights
It can be said that the collection of knowledge networks, “thousand love one”, is an achievement of national power and selfless support for knowledge networks. The reality is that the knowledge network has turned “knowledge base work” into a profit-making tool。
In 2020 alone, the company's main business income was rmb 1,168 million, with a māori rate of 53. 93 per cent; in 2021, the company's income from its main business increased further to rmb 1,289 million, with a māori rate of 53. 35 per cent. Among the six main subsidiaries of the same shares, the co-owners of the network's operating income and net profits to the mother are at midstream levels, with the highest rates of maori。
According to publicly available information, since 2005 there has never been less than 50 per cent, or even more than 70 per cent, of the cpin mĀori rate, and value planet statistics, 2021, where the cpin mĀori rate exceeds 85 per cent or more of the a stock listed companies, can be seen in the steady profitability of the operation。
In business, in the face of huge access and maintenance costs, knowledge networks need to cover operating costs, and users of knowledge can only pay heavily for it. But, in the name of “china’s knowledge base project,” the authors’ copyrights are ignored, and the annual price increases charged to academic institutions for large renewal fees clearly run counter to the original intent of knowledge-sharing。
Indeed, the complaints of public opinion about the internet are not just a fee model, and many netizens believe that the behaviour of the network may involve a monopoly。
A shanghai university teacher indicated to the value planet that the largest volume of literature was available in the country's main academic journals database, and that therefore most higher education institutions would be the first to use the knowledge network when reviewing their papers. Moreover, both graduate dissertations by students and academic studies by professors, impact assessments are based on the number of downloads and references made online, and, if their own academic research is to have a wider impact, copyrights need to be handed over to icrin. There are some important literature, and the internet also has exclusive copyrights. For knowledge networks, this creates a virtuous cycle。
Whether exclusive copyrights on the internet involve monopolies may require very rigorous reasoning and legal definition. Based on the previous experience of the superintendence of markets in ali and the united states monopolies cases, it is usually only necessary to verify that there is a high level of suspicion of wrongdoing in the network that a formal case will be opened, and that the process of enforcement following the establishment of the case will generally take longer to define the relevant market scope of the network, determine whether it is dominant in the market and determine whether it constitutes abuse。
However, in some cases similar to copyrights in academic journals, in july last year, the general directorate of market supervision ordered the decriminalization of exclusive copyrights for online music。
On 25 april, in response to an online message from the media, the directorate-general for the supervision of national markets stated that attention had been paid to the suspected monopoly of the internet, as reflected by various parties, and that work was being carried out in accordance with the law。
Indeed, whether it is suspected of being a monopoly or not, it should be more responsible as an institution carrying the burden of knowledge-sharing and academic research, rather than as a tool for self-interest as it is now。
