Elsevier mounting a challenge to Researchgate pdfs? : AskAcademia

"Thoughts on the following snippet? Received an email today which is abridged below. Seems like Elsevier are sending out notices

'Dear Author, I am writing to you with regards to the scholarly collaboration network ResearchGate that currently hosts, modifies and distributes large numbers of journal articles without permission or license. Following numerous unsuccessful attempts to agree an approach with ResearchGate to facilitate the sharing of articles in ways that respect the publishing agreements between journals and authors, in accordance with the STM Association’s Voluntary Principles for Article Sharing on Scholarly Collaboration Networks, ResearchGate has requested that publishers issue take down notices (TDNs) for articles which it should not be hosting. The Coalition for Responsible Sharing, a group of several publishers, societies and information analytics organizations that includes Elsevier, has been left with no other choice but to now respond accordingly. Members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing include: the American Chemical Society, the American Medical Association, the American Physiological Society, BMJ, Brill, Elsevier, Future Science Group, IEEE, International Water Association, Oxford University Press, Portland Press (wholly-owned by the Biochemical Society), Wiley, Wolters Kluwer, and World Scientific Publishing. Elsevier will send TDNs to ResearchGate to request that they remove PDFs of the final version of papers published in Elsevier Journals. Any articles published as Gold Open Access will of course remain unaffected. It is important to note that the TDNs are directed at ResearchGate not at authors. We understand that you may not have personally uploaded this article. This situation requires no action on your part however we felt it important to inform you as a courtesy and to point out that if ResearchGate wrongly hosts a PDF of the final version of your article, it might not be available via the site in the future. We do not take this action lightly and recognise that ResearchGate is a popular platform for researchers. Publishers have offered user friendly solutions to ResearchGate that would make sharing via its site seamless and easy for researchers while bringing the platform into copyright compliance. ResearchGate has shown no interest in these solutions. Hosting final published articles without permission undermines the long-term sustainability of journals. We are also concerned that ResearchGate undermines the integrity of research by, for instance, altering articles and missing important retractions and corrections. The Coalition for Responsible Sharing has provided a statement explaining the action in more detail and has published a list of FAQs. Information on how to share your articles can be found at How Can I Share It. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at Author-Copyright@elsevier.com. Thank you for publishing in our journal and we look forward to continuing our partnership with you. Kind regards,'"