Elsevier steps up its War On Access December 17, 2013

I thought Elsevier was already doing all it could to alienate the authors who freely donate their work to shore up the corporation’s obscene profits. The thousands of takedown notices sent to Academia.edu represent at best a grotesque PR mis-step, an idiot manoeuvre that I thought Elsevier would immediately regret and certainly avoid repeating.

Which just goes to show that I dramatically underestimated just how much Elsevier hate it when people read the research they publish, and the lengths they’re prepared to go to when it comes to ensuring the work stays unread.

Now, they’re targeting individual universities.

The University of Calgary has just sent this notice to all staff:

The University of Calgary has been contacted by a company representing the publisher, Elsevier Reed, regarding certain Elsevier journal articles posted on our publicly accessible university web pages. We have been provided with examples of these articles and reviewed the situation. Elsevier has put the University of Calgary on notice that these publicly posted Elsevier journal articles are an infringement of Elsevier Reed’s copyright and must be taken down.

That’s it, folks. Elsevier have taken the gloves off. I’ve tried repeatedly to think the best of them, to interpret their actions in the most charitable light. I even wrote a four-part series on how they can regain the trust of researchers and librarians (part 0, part 1, part 2, part 3), under the evidently mistaken impression that that was what they wanted.

But now it’s apparent that I was far too optimistic. They have no interest in working with authors, universities, businesses or anyone else. They just want to screw every possible cent out of all parties in the short term.

Because this is, obviously, a very short-term move. Whatever feeble facade Elsevier have till now maintained of being partners in the ongoing process of research is gone forever. They’ve just tossed it away, instead desperately trying to cling onto short-term profit. In going after the University of Calgary (and I imagine other universities as well, unless this is a pilot harassment), Elsevier have declared their position as unrepentant enemies of science.

In essence, this move is an admission of defeat. It’s a classic last-throw-of-the-dice manoeuvre. It signals a recognition from Elsevier that they simply aren’t going to be able to compete with actual publishers in the 21st century. They’re burning the house down on their way out. They’re asset-stripping academia.

Elsevier are finished as a credible publisher. I can’t believe any researcher who knows what they’re doing is going to sign away their rights to Elsevier journals after this. I hope to see the editorial boards of Elsevier-encumbered journals breaking away from the dead-weight of the publisher, and finding deals that actually promote the work of those journals rather than actively hindering it.

And a reminder, folks: for those of you who want to publicly declare that you’re done with Elsevier, you can sign the Cost Of Knowledge declaration. That’s often been described as a petition, but it’s not. A petition exists to persuade someone to do something, but we’re not asking Elsevier to change. It’s evidently far, far too late for that. As a publisher, Elsevier is dead. The Cost of Knowledge is just a declaration that we’re walking away from the corpse before the stench becomes unbearable.