Emerald Group Publishing Limited’s Use of the Attributor Anti-Piracy Service

Emerald is using an infringement-detection service, called Attributor, which issues automatic take-down notices for copies it believes are unauthorized. To prevent erroneous take-down notices, Emerald asked its authors to tell the company all the places where they had posted authorized copies of their Emerald publications, such as their institutional repositories. After some bloggers expressed concern that Emerald was retreating from its green policy, Charles Bailey asked the company to clarify, and it used his blog to do so. "By requesting authors to provide Emerald with the locations of their own versions, we can be sure that when Attributor’s search engines pick up the articles...a take down notice is not sent in error. Emerald continues to support its liberal author charter..., as well as the RoMeo Green status...."