Current Liblicense Archive - Elsevier's Unforced Error

"For those who are unhappy with decades of Elsevier's policies, practices, pricing, and even their recent purchase of Mendeley, their unforced error in issuing take-down notices is an amazing, mistaken and ultimately self-destructive decision on Elsevier's part. Anyone who has any disagreement with Elsevier on any issue: copyright, OA policies, hybrid journals, OA pricing, pricing in general, control of backfiles, text mining, any of a myriad of issues including, their crazy if you mandate it you can't do it IR policy and their standard refusal to permit re-printing 'their' research, should publicize this far and wide. Elsevier, no matter what they say, has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt in this action, their limited understanding of their remit, their control of scholarly research, They are nobody's friend's except their shareholders. They have demonstrated their DNA, their belief in their right to control the content scholars and researchers create and publish with Elsevier. They are wrong. What copyright law says is irrelevant in this, what authors want to do with their own research is paramount. It might have been masked before under the guise of impact factors and  collegial editorial board meetings in locations worldwide and smart as a whip editors, and outreach at conferences, and invitations to 'publish your research with us' and PR, and more or less 'green' OA policies, and excellent inhouse readings of directions in future trends, and all the other trappings and expertise they have in academic publishing which is at the top of its game. Those trapping are insufficient. Elsevier and its cynical relationship with authors and institutions, has been demonstrated by Elsevier itself. No one could have done this to them but themselves. The tide of OA, of authors making sure people who need to see it, get to read their research, OA in all its guises, is inexorable and if handled correctly even by such behemoths as Elsevier, will lift all boats in the publishing stream, despite the scaremongers and naysayers in publishing, or the mistaken advice of some in libraries, or even among OA advocates themselves. It's logic is persuasive, its goals commensurate ultimately with what authors want for their own research. To put up and enforce barriers to what scholars want to distribute that they themselves produce is antediluvian. Elsevier's unforced error may be more effective than any boycott."