On the Cost of IEEE and ISO Standards Documents?

jeffmock asks: "It seems that I bump against this problem a couple of times a year. Last year I was working on an MP3 project and I needed to read the spec for MPEG-I layer-3 audio. The document is ISO 13818-3 and it costs $150 to get a third generation, barely readable photocopy. It's not a freely available document. This week I want to read the 802.11 spec. You can purchase a hard copy from the IEEE for $288 or they will let you download a PDF file for $432. Is this right? I understand the need to fund standards efforts and limit the circulation of drafts while they're a work in progress. Does it make sense to put up this kind of financial barrier for established industry standards?"

Comments

ISO standards documents

[couchslayer]

Note: to the best of what I remember, ...

ISO documents are charged, at least for paper copies, on a per-page basis; there's something rather weirdly high (like $.80 US - ish) assessed as a "copying fee". Why PDF files would be more expensive beats me.

For emerging standards, though, the ISO usually releases draft copies for public comment -- there's something like a 30-day window -- and these drafts, I believe are free. Plus, they tend to be fairly close to what actually goes in as a standard. This was recommended to me as the cheapest way to get copies of up-and-coming standards at the last CGATS (the graphics arts subcomittee of the ISO) meeting I was at.

Dunno if this will help in your case, but it might help someone, or down the road.