The debate about scholarly knowledge infrastructure has long been framed as a contest between openness and commercial enclosure. This framing distorts both policy and practice. The real tension lies between the persistent cost of producing and refining structured metadata under deep technological friction, and the differentiated demands distinct communities place on data quality, focus and granularity. We introduce the innovation annulus: the zone between freely available structured data and the advancing frontier of commercially refined knowledge products. This zone is a permanent, functional feature of the ecosystem -- not a pathology to eliminate. By analogy with the efficient market hypothesis, its width measures production inefficiency, set by the interplay of friction and demand. Artificial intelligence reshapes the annulus, lowering barriers to basic structuring, raising the threshold at which refinement adds value, and introducing systemic risks through unprovenanced AI-derived metadata. CRediT contributions, funding acknowledgements and AI disclosure statements illustrate the annulus lifecycle. Governance should calibrate the annulus, not abolish it: thin enough to serve research efficiently, wide enough to sustain innovation. A formal welfare framework, analogous to the Nordhaus optimal patent life, characterises the trade-offs and yields testable predictions. The Barcelona Declaration offers a promising forum for boundary governance.

翻译：关于学术知识基础设施的争论长期被框定为开放性与商业封闭之间的较量。这种框架扭曲了政策与实践。真正的张力在于：在技术摩擦深重环境下，生产与精炼结构化元数据的持续成本，与不同群体对数据质量、侧重及粒度的差异化需求之间的博弈。我们提出"创新环区"概念：即免费开放的结构化数据与商业化精炼知识产品前沿之间的区域。该区域是生态系统中永久且功能性的特征——而非需要消除的病态。类比有效市场假说，其宽度衡量了生产效率低下程度，由摩擦与需求相互作用决定。人工智能重塑了该环区：降低基础结构化的门槛，提高精炼增值的阈值，并通过未经溯源的AI衍生元数据引入系统性风险。CRediT贡献、基金致谢及AI披露声明展示了该环区的生命周期。治理应校准而非消除环区：足够薄以高效服务科研，足够宽以维系创新。类比Nordhaus最优专利寿命的正式福利框架，可刻画权衡关系并产生可检验预测。《巴塞罗那宣言》为边界治理提供了富有前景的论坛。