#OED
You seem to be ignoring 2 factors.
1. The *value* of the information.
2. The costs of production of the information.
There are difficulties in assessing the value of information as a
commodity but you shouldn't ignore it and you must also cost the
process of collection, collation, definition, selection etc which I
suspect the OUP couldn't even estimate themselves.
GarethM (Who has the new OED-CD on order and also has it on paper,
although the compressed edition)