Elsevier Upping the Ante in its Opposition to Academics. Copyfight: the politics of IP

abernard102@gmail.com 2013-12-08

Summary:

"... Elsevier has started sending takedown notices to academia.edu. While technically within its rights to do so, this is a dickish move by Elsevier that will hurt the professors, students, and researchers involved in producing some of the best quality academic work. In case you've forgotten, the system works like this: Elsevier controls the publication of major journals. Academics submit (and often pay a fee for the privilege) to these journals, where other academics give Elsevier their free labor as editors and reviewers. Having gotten all this for free, Elsevier then turns around and charges universities exorbitant sums for subscriptions to these journals, all the while prohibiting the people doing the actual research work from "publishing" their work elsewhere, which includes posting it on Web sites. For the most part, Elsevier has turned a blind eye to private non-profit publication by the researchers. At least, up to now. But according to the letter reproduced on svpow.com, academia.edu has been served with takedown notices for papers that Elsevier now owns copyrights to. Academia.edu is positioned as a proponent of 'open access to academic literature' and does not mince words in its frustration, calling Elsevier's move '...upping the ante in its opposition to academics sharing their own papers online.' It is, to say the least, petty and dickish. Elsevier has the legal right to antagonize the people who provide the fuel for its engines, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what they think they will gain by doing so.  And because it has been about 10 months let me repeat my mantra: Hey, academics! You handed Elsevier the whip that it is now using to flog you. Clean up your own tenure-track house and this problem will solve itself."

Link:

http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2013/12/07/elsevier_upping_the_ante_in_its_opposition_to_academics.php

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.publishers oa.policies oa.licensing oa.comment oa.elsevier oa.copyright oa.academia.edu oa.versions oa.takedowns oa.libre

Date tagged:

12/08/2013, 12:11

Date published:

12/08/2013, 07:10