Update on the P2P Study in the Journal of Political Economy

A representative from the Journals Division of the University of Chicago Press responded to Monday's postabout the P2P study that appeared in its Journal of Political Economy, explaining that the paper published this February was the final, peer-reviewed version (the 2004 version, originally mentioned in this update, had not yet gone through peer review and revision).

In addition, she pointed out that the extra attention given to this study here prompted the University of Chicago to allow temporary temporary open access to the final version of Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf's article, so that those who don't subscribe to the journal can read it in its entirety.

"Scholarly papers go through a peer-review process before acceptance and publication. The PDF you've provided is an early working version of the paper from 2004 that was not peer-reviewed. The article published in the latest issue of the Journal of Political Economy is the peer-reviewed version, and -- as tends to happen during any editing process -- there have been many revisions and updates. This explains the February 2007 publication of the article in JPE and, indeed, the discrepancy between the date you will find on many working papers (essentially first drafts) and the date of publication in a scholarly journal.

"In light of the attention this study is getting and the importance of having the most current, accurate version of the paper freely available, the University of Chicago Press has temporarily opened access to Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf's paper in the February issue of JPE. Here is a link..."

I wrote earlier that I think the study's approach was innovative, and its conclusion (that there's no link between the increased availability of a song on P2P networks and a drop in its CD sales) is always relevant.

Thoughts?

ine