Jim Biz said:
IMHO - ISO as an organization dosent "Publish standards" it creates them - although there must be a Master copy laying around somewhere over there..
Then it lets people know which ones are current and it allows folks like ASQ
A "non-profit"

Society (hehehe)

to publish & distribute them.
I dont know where your set of standards came from but mine came from ASQ for a SET publishing price - which As far as I know is not negeotiable
Jim,
As the sponsor of an international standard, ISO actually
does have some control over the minimum selling price. Since every standard is copyrighted,
every organization that republishes it must pay a fee to the copyright holder. It seems logical that the minimum break-even price would then be the copyright fee plus the cost of production and distribution.
ISO standards are normally distributed by the ISO member organization of a country. In the USA, that is ANSI. In the specific case of quality managment system standards, ANSI recognizes ASQ as the appropriate standards developing organization in the US. Both organizations sell copies of the standards. They may or may not have their own covers on them. They may charge different prices -- actually, I have seen a number of cases where it is more expensive to buy it from ANSI.
One way to compare costs of standards is to look up the price on the ISO web site. It is listed in Swiss Francs (CHF) and any curreny-conversion web site will allow you to find the current price in your own currency. That can then be used as a comparison benchmark. For example, ISO 9001:2000 is listed by ISO at CHF 97,00 -- today (2004-06-11) this equates to US$ 77.15. The ASQ price for this standard (print version) is $40.00 for members and $50.00 for others.
Other standards developing organizations - ASTM and IEEE come to mind instantly - sell their own standards and
rarely let other organizations do so. The major exception seems to be if the standard is accepted as an American National Standard, in which case you can also purchase it through ANSI.
There are also commercial third parties that are in the business of reselling standards - a major one is headquartered near Denver. They must first purchase reproduction rights to the standard from an appropriate organization, and then resell it to their customers.
There are also retailers that sell copies of standards as books - a popular internet-based bookseller, for example. When a customer buys through them, the bookseller must first purchase the standard from the publisher (ASQ for example). While they may be able to purchase copies at a "wholesale" price, that is not guaranteed and is not always passed on to their retail customers. And then they add a markup to cover their expenses, plus a "shipping and handling" fee.
Yes, organizations such as ASQ and ANSI make a profit (show an operating surplus). They must, in order to survive. There's nothing wrong with that. After all, an objective of your own organization is to make a profit as well. Otherwise, it will not survive. (Deming, The new economics [I think])