This study delves into the evolving landscape of scholarly communication in the field of physics during the twentieth century, marked by significant historical events like World War II and the Cold War. While prior research has explored shifts in the physicist community and scholarly societies, it has largely overlooked the intricate dynamics of pricing mechanisms that funded the dissemination of research and their transformation amid changing research funding and intellectual property contexts.

Drawing on archival records from the American Institute of Physics (AIP), this paper traces the trajectory of pricing mechanisms. It commences with the legitimization of page charges in the 1930s, followed by the decline in revenue from this source in the 1960s. The scholarly society's response to copyright law changes in the 1970s is examined, leading to a discussion of the revised copyright law of 1976 and the AIP's corresponding policies. Specifically, the paper investigates how the AIP aimed to generate new revenue streams by capitalizing on copyright ownership during a period when traditional revenue sources, like author page charges and reader subscriptions, were diminishing.

Furthermore, this paper sheds light on the pivotal role played by the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) in the post-1976 Copyright Act era, despite its limited revenue contribution. Ultimately, it becomes evident that the CCC laid the groundwork for the AIP to achieve substantial revenue generation in the electronic age of scholarly communication.