Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

That's the interesting part: Elsevier does not have copyright of these papers! The authors do. However, by publishing with Elsevier, you grant them an exclusive license for the right to publish and distribute the article.[1]

Note that this even includes the author copy of the manuscript (albeit with slightly more lenient terms - the author may only post the copy to a personally operated website or their institution's website).[2]

1. http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-polici...

2. http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-polici...

Re: Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

#5

Post by res0nat0r » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 6:15 PM UTC

3JPLW wrote: post #4

res0nat0r wrote: post #2

Are the papers being DMCA'd under copyright by Elsevir?

That's the interesting part: Elsevier does not have copyright of these papers! The authors do. However, by publishing with Elsevier, you grant them an exclusive license for the right to publish and distribute the article.[1] Note that this even includes the author copy of the manuscript (albeit with slightly more lenient terms - the author may only post the copy to a personally operated website or their institution's…

Sounds like perfectly acceptable takedown notices then.

Re: Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

#6

Post by 3JPLW » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 6:19 PM UTC

res0nat0r wrote: post #5

3JPLW wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the interesting part: Elsevier does not have copyright of these papers! The authors do. However, by publishing with Elsevier, you grant them an exclusive license for the right to publish and distribute the article.[1] Note that this even includes the author copy of the manuscript (albeit with slightly more lenient terms - the author may only post the copy to a personally operated website or their institution's…

Sounds like perfectly acceptable takedown notices then.

I'm not a lawyer, nor have I thoroughly read the DMCA; is the text broad enough to cover such licenses, over and above copyright?

Re: Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

#7

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 6:24 PM UTC

3JPLW wrote: post #4

res0nat0r wrote: post #2

Are the papers being DMCA'd under copyright by Elsevir?

That's the interesting part: Elsevier does not have copyright of these papers! The authors do. However, by publishing with Elsevier, you grant them an exclusive license for the right to publish and distribute the article.[1] Note that this even includes the author copy of the manuscript (albeit with slightly more lenient terms - the author may only post the copy to a personally operated website or their institution's…

Would love to see that contested in court. Have an author put it back up on the site (send then a letter of authorization) and then Elselvier will have to sue the author to get it taken down again. I wonder if Elselvier could survive the PR of suing 1,000 scientists for publishing their own papers on a user content contributed web site.

Re: Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

#8

Post by gjuggler » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 6:27 PM UTC

There's nothing controversial here — Elsevier merely bumped up the rate at which they're sending Academia.edu takedown notices for obvious infringement by its users.

What's more interesting to me is that ResearchGate, a site which is virtually identical to Academia.edu in its "mission" and design, has been redistributing a shockingly large number of Elsevier PDFs for a long time. Unless these google searches are misleading, there seem to be many thousands of them:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:researchgate.net+filety...

I'm really stumped as to how ResearchGate gets away with this, but Academia.edu is getting hit with DMCA takedowns. Maybe Elsevier and other publishers haven't yet learned to reliably "find" ResearchGate's shared papers, or perhaps they've come up with some arrangement that allows them to publicly share thousands of paywalled PDFs with impunity?

Re: Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

#9

Post by monksy » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

gjuggler wrote: post #8

There's nothing controversial here — Elsevier merely bumped up the rate at which they're sending Academia.edu takedown notices for obvious infringement by its users. What's more interesting to me is that ResearchGate, a site which is virtually identical to Academia.edu in its "mission" and design, has been redistributing a shockingly large number of Elsevier PDFs for a long time. Unless these google searches are misl…

ResearchGate is based in Germany, they may be protected against DMCAs.

Re: Academia.edu slammed with takedown notices from Elsevier

#10

Post by rmk2 » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 6:43 PM UTC

I only see winners in this: I think both Elsevier and academia.edu are bloody plagues, and whoever loses, I'm happy. The way I see this, either people are turned off academia.edu or away from Elsevier, both of which are desirable results in my opinion. So...good job, I suppose?