Elsevier withdraws support from Research Works Act, bill collapses - Boing Boing

“Science publishing giant Elsevier has pulled its support from the Research Works Act... The action follows a scholarly and scientific boycott of Elsevier, and has led to the collapse of the bill... I believed from the start that Elsevier would be vulnerable to a boycott threat... The question isn't whether Elsevier deserves to make money, or makes too much money: the question (for institutions, scholars and scientists) is whether paying Elsevier is the best way to do science and scholarship. Elsevier isn't a charity, and there's no reason to expect institutions to pay for its journals if they can get better science and scholarship for less through the open access movement... Elsevier is vulnerable, and their overreaching legal proposal just accelerated the pace at which scholars and scientists turned to open access...”