I wrote two pieces for the OBO ("Karma" and "Vedic Agni").  The work required was indeed significant; no less than that needed for a major article.

Free access is hardly asking "too much," and I support your position not to contribute further revision without at least gaining this token in exchange for our work. 

Herman Tull

On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 10:51 AM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com> wrote:
A few years ago, I wrote an annotated bibliography on Indian Medicine for the OBO project.  When I originally did the work, it took *much* longer than I had anticipated.  I had thought I could just dust off a teaching bibliography, but it turned out to be several weeks of careful work.  I should think my hourly rate of payment for the work was about 10% of the minimum wage.  But I was pleased with the result - I think I did a useful job.  And OUP's online site is good, and adds various nice internet-tweaks.  But it's a licensed product.  It's not available to the public, but only to institutional subscribers.  Individual articles, like mine, are apparently sold through Amazon and other outlets for about $7 a pop.

Last week I was contacted by OUP and invited to update the bibliography.  They offered no payment. I asked, and was offered $50 worth of OUP books.  I thought that was not worthwhile.  I can't revise the bibliography meaningfully in 90 minutes.  So I asked whether I could at least have free access to OBO in return for doing the revisions.  I was told that this decision was above my editor's authority, and therefore "no." 

I have now sent OUP the following decision not to continue revising my (their) bibliography: 

After some reflection, I can't see why I would do this revision work for no meaningful remuneration, and no way of accessing my own work once online, and when OUP is presumably making profits from licensing the work I created.  I hope you can see that there is little incentive for me.  I think, actually, that the overall business model is seriously flawed.

I would feel more motivated to do it, I think, if you were able to find someone in OUP with the authority to give me permanent gratis access to OBO.

Sincerely,

I know that several of my colleagues here in the INDOLOGY forum have also contributed excellent guides to OBO, so I thought I would share my experience.

I have managed to write this whole email without using the word "exploitation."  Oops...

Sincerely,
Dominik

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--
Herman Tull
Princeton, NJ