From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2017 12:58:54 +0000 Anthony, There is a saying, that I have seen attributed to economist Katheryn Price, to the effect that the moment a company makes a mistake in pricing, they either damage their profits or their reputation. I think Elsevier has made that mistake wildly in the direction of overpricing and therefore have seriously damaged their reputation. Indeed, they seem to make quite a number of public relations missteps, which was the point of my original comment. So it is possible that researchers who elect to use Sci-Hub even when Elsevier is available to them are voting with their feet. They may still submit to Elsevier journals in spite of their distaste -- which is very easy to detect in any conversation with scholarly authors -- because of perceived P&T pressures, but prefer to use some other source for their own research. The other possible reason that occurs to me is convenience. Since I have never tried to find an article using Sci-Hub, I cannot assess the merits of that as a possible reason, but those two explanations are both possible, and not mutually exclusive. Your second and third paragraph together seem to suggest that librarians and others responsible for subscriptions are over-estimating the importance of Elsevier, don't they? If lots of researchers have subscription-based access to Elsevier, but many of those same researchers are opting to use Sci-Hub instead, maybe we need to reconsider our cherished belief that we cannot cancel Elsevier subscriptions without bring down the wrath of researchers on our heads. It is possible that our faculty members are way ahead of us librarians in pursuing new avenues for scholarly communications. I am sorry you find my comments so predictable; I suppose I can only wish that they required as little study or thought as you seem to believe. Kevin Kevin L. Smith, J.D. Dean of Libraries University of Kansas -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 31 May 2017 10:37:28 +0100 I was waiting for Kevin to say something like this. He would be failing in his duty if he did not do so. The interesting thing about SciHub is that someone has shown that many of the users have access to the articles they go to SciHib for. Why is this? I would be interested in his views. I would guess that more researchers have access to Elsevier toll access articles than to the articles of any other publisher who uses the subscription model. They certainly have more big deals and more penetration that way than any other publisher. Anthony -----Original Message----- From: "Smith, Kevin L" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tue, 30 May 2017 13:04:33 +0000 It is a rather curious article, beginning with the very intimidating language quoted, but going on to note that the founder of Sci-Hub expects to continue to defy the U.S. court. There is probably very little that Elsevier can do to enforce a judgment it obtains, so any award is likely to have only symbolic value. Even the symbolism seems likely to have only limited impact, since the grandiose language of righteous indignation in Elsevier's motion is so common to them. They say things like "staggering" and "egregious" in every press release they issue about alleged infringement and even about public access proposals. They cry wolf so often, in short, that even when that language might be justified it is just too easy to dismiss. And, of course, there is the point made at the end of the article that Elsevier has likely brought more attention to Sci-Hub than would have been possible if they had simply ignored it. I am sure the decision-makers at Elsevier thought this would be their "Napster moment," but the truth is that they pretty much made Sci-Hub what it is, and now they are finding that they cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Kevin L. Smith, J.D. Dean of Libraries University of Kansas -----Original Message----- From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 28 May 2017 09:24:47 -0400 Article we missed last week: "'Pirate' sites Sci-Hub and LibGen face millions of dollars in damages in a lawsuit filed by Elsevier, one of the largest academic publishers. Elsevier has requested a default judgment of $15 million against the defendants for their "truly egregious conduct" and "staggering" infringement." https://torrentfreak.com/elsevier-wants-15-million-piracy-damages-from-sci-hub-and-libgen-170518/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTWpOak1tWXhaRGhtTmpBNSIsInQiOiI3QzdyUW5nUlB0UzYrcTBQYzNMN2pKXC9pR3Vrc250VzRGaks4bHh6QWphZTV1STYybUE2Zm5DU0VOVnRMQktwZWNpb3RpamwyS1lRWnAzQVZ4cStHZnBwcWplK1lZRncxc2t2SWtCV3BDODNCVnE2RmhnNzd5SGk3aUF0TDhkY0UifQ%3D%3D