Sci-Hub—Elsevier: 62 million for more openness—15 million against

“This ruling should stand as a warning to those who knowingly violate others’ rights,” comments Matt McKay of the STM Association on the decision of a New York district court against Sci-Hub. The court ruled that Sci-Hub, the Library of Genesis, and similar illegal projects will have to pay $15m to the claimant. Sounds about right, it’s copyright infringement. Of all the laws, publishers should hold up those dealing with intellectual property the highest.

Yet, the claimant is Elsevier, which gives the ruling a bitter taste.

A symptom of many people’s frustration with the status quo

As Stephen Curry of Imperial College put it: “Sci-Hub is obviously illegal. But the fact that it is so immensely popular […] is a symptom of many people’s frustration with the status quo in academic publishing.” This status quo includes exploitation of some systematic flaws that seems to put commercial procedures before the key purpose of publishing: communicating research and recognising academic achievement.

Yet, it’s publishing that should serve the researchers; not the researchers who should help publishers to thrive. There are quite a lot articles exploring this topic and providing evidence that the status quo is skewed: the few playful digital features don’t justify the commercial success. Playing the card of maintaining a value system for academia doesn’t suffice either—it’s the researchers who maintain the value (peer review) and the publishers who maintain the system (based on reputation and inertia).

“First comes a full stomach, then comes ethics”

Sci-Hub with its database of about 62 million articles is only showing that the journal market isn’t fast enough to be open. Research builds upon other research. This is the key formula for the market; Sci-Hub is accelerating the development to make it possible for everyone. That an illegal entity is the accelerator, is a sign that business and technology aren’t on the same path.

Yet, the current attacks on the status quo in scholarly communication point to a considerable economic devaluation of the publishing industry. This devaluation will inevitably involve the end of many players in the market. Those who “knowingly violate others’ rights” is very much subject to definitions. And these definitions are more and more being scrutinised by law- and policy makers. With about 200,000 download requests per day, Sci-Hub is the most prominent example of researchers’ need for access to research. They know it’s illegal. They still need the research. Sci-Hub is “here to stay,” as Peter Suber put it.

If Elsevier was fully OA—who could afford publishing there?

Elsevier is at the forefront of maintaining the status quo. A recently published study (OA) analysed Elsevier’s Open Access activities. In the article, Heather Morrison depicts Elsevier to be among the largest Open Access publishers, even with a positive development towards more openness. So far, that’s nice. But the article also touches the deceptive copyright practices (described as author nominal copyright) and the impressive number of hybrid journals which manage to successfully charge towering APCs.

The article furthermore features a compelling thought experiment, in which Heather Morrison calculates the estimated APCs which Elsevier would have to charge in order to flip all its output to Open Access (that is, replace all STM revenue with APCs). With a range from $11,965 to $5,115, the average APCs would be profoundly higher than at other Open Access publishers; and with $3,222 considerably higher than with successful not-for-profit publishers.

Surely, this is only a scenario analysis showing what the current business conduct would lead to in a future scenario—a true flip would also mean a reduction of costs and an output change. But it makes Elsevier a bit more comparable in an Open Access world. In such, Elsevier isn’t particularly a thought leader.

How would Sci-Hub look like in an Open Access world?

Digital technologies offer all sorts of features for analysis, filtering, collaborating, processing and many more. Foremost, though, digitality should enable access for all. Sci-Hub may be proof that offering all the other technologies won’t stop the open access disruption. I’m not in favour of copyright infringement, not at all. But libraries, funders, researchers, and publishers must act. Publishers most of all, as in: How would a legal fully open access publishing landscape really look like? How will the economics work? (Unimaginable that the whole market just flips, but will it become a funder-market?) And how will librarians work with their shift from physical gatekeepers to a network of scalable filter & service providers?

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