From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 16:11:37

http://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

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.

Chuck Hamaker