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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…
Come to think of it, implicitly calling for a boycott of another company while simultaneously trying to bootstrap a business based on violating that company's license terms feels pretty slimy too.
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?
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?
I'm a bit familiar with the current events and business practices that bring vitriol against Elsevier. Not so much for academia.edu though and I've only heard of it a few other times as I'm not in academia. What causes you to feel negatively about it?
One of the things we get told frequently is that we need to "expand our social media presence", i.e. to get LinkedIn and academia.edu. This is essentially highly functioning hypocrasy in my opinion, because the same people who advocate it or "follow" your profile, if met directly, do not give a shit about what you are working on.
I have enough of the "so...what are you working on?" question that immediately follows the exchange of names. It is almost always followed by the shortest possible description, because, really, nobody gives a shit. Often enough, even the general topic area is enough to make other people glaze over and switch off. Academia.edu etc. pretend that there is great interest where there is none, and at the same time further the already backstabby and highly disingenious environment within academia.
At least, that's my take on it.
[edit]: It also furthers the already widespread plague of inflating your CV with absolutely bloody everything you've ever done. Given a 15-minute talk as an introduction to a class or seminar? That's a "talk" now, apparently. Organised a club that met (perhaps once) to discuss the importance of petting animals during the exam period, and that asks for access to petting animals for everybody[1]. Onto your profile it goes. Wrote an "article" for the "journal" you and those other people you know "published", made up of your and your friends' articles? Publications! etc.
[1]: I wish I were kidding. I am not. However, since posting a citation for this would reveal a bit more about me than I care to share here, I won't. Take it or leave it!
So, in a sense, are Academia.edu not encouraging this behaviour (which is frequently copyright-infringing) by making it hard to add references without actively uploading the pdfs themselves?
It's probably irrational, but Academia.edu's domain really annoys me - I dislike a company using a .edu domain. It feels deceptive, in some way. Come to think of it, implicitly calling for a boycott of another company while simultaneously trying to bootstrap a business based on violating that company's license terms feels pretty slimy too.
If they were trying to bootstrap a business based on violating Elsevier's licence terms, then why have they complied with Elsevier's requests to take down content?
If their business is based on violating the licence to that content then removing that content would remove their business, and this might be true if all scientific papers had to be published through Elsevier which would mean that a service like this then would not be able to operate without violating those terms, however that is quite clearly not the case.
You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site or Services. Accordingly, you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site or Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Academia.edu the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms; and (ii) neither the Member Content nor your posting, uploading, publication, submission or transmittal of the Member Content or Academia.edu’s use of the Member Content (or any portion thereof) on, through or by means of the Site or Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.
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…
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.
People think of their profile area on a social site as theirs, the law not withstanding, and pissing around with research scientists public profiles just sounds to me about as bright for a company that depends on academia as sticking your face in a bucket of angry bees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a bit familiar with the current events and business practices that bring vitriol against Elsevier. Not so much for academia.edu though and I've only heard of it a few other times as I'm not in academia. What causes you to feel negatively about it?
Academia.edu bothers me on a somewhat different level: It becomes yet another of the levels were academia pretends to be more and more like the business world (with LinkedIn). The whole idea is to further display and reinforce your own splendour, adding subtle peer-pressure to everybody else. One of the things we get told frequently is that we need to "expand our social media presence", i.e. to get LinkedIn and acade…
I hadn't looked at Academia.edu through this lens before. I think it's in a position to accomplish a lot more, so here's hoping they focus on 'impact' and not just 'engagement'.
It's probably irrational, but Academia.edu's domain really annoys me - I dislike a company using a .edu domain. It feels deceptive, in some way. Come to think of it, implicitly calling for a boycott of another company while simultaneously trying to bootstrap a business based on violating that company's license terms feels pretty slimy too.
It does violate expectations, in part because it violates the stated rules of the .edu registrar, and therefore what people expect to find under .edu. But prior to 2001 there was no formal enforcement, and a grandfather clause applies to domains registered up through late 2001. Academia.edu seems to fall in that category, even though the company and site themselves weren't started until after the rule change. Presumably someone was sitting on the domain for a future use. Not sure if they bought it, or the founder was sitting on it for years. Since 2006, transferring grandfathered .edu domains is also prohibited, but it could've been sold in the 2001-06 window.