Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2018 16:34:15 -0400

The complaint can be found here:

https://www.infodocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/acs_elsevier_rgate.pdf

US District Court -- District of Maryland

Begins :

1. This action arises from the massive infringement of peer-reviewed,
published journal articles (“PJAs”). Plaintiffs publish the articles
in their journals and own the respective copyrights. Defendant
deliberately uses infringing copies of those PJAs to drive its
business.

2. Founded in 1876, Plaintiff ACS is an internationally renowned
professional and scientific society. It publishes over 50
peer-reviewed scientific journals, primarily in the field of chemistry
and related disciplines.  Founded in 1880, Plaintiff Elsevier is an
international multimedia publishing company. Elsevier publishes
hundreds of thousands of articles annually in over 2,500 peer-reviewed
journals it maintains.  Founded in 2008, Defendant ResearchGate is a
for-profit business that owns and operates an online social network
and file sharing / download service. Each is aimed at scientists,
researchers and related professionals and located on ResearchGate’s
website at http://ResearchGate.net (the “RG Website”).

3. This lawsuit focuses on ResearchGate’s intentional misconduct
vis-à-vis its online file-sharing / download service, where the
dissemination of unauthorized copies of PJAs constitutes an enormous
infringement of the copyrights owned by ACS, Elsevier and other
journal publishers.  The lawsuit is not about researchers and
scientists collaborating; asking and answering questions; promoting
themselves, their projects, or their findings; or sharing research
findings, raw data, or pre-prints of articles.

4. ResearchGate’s infringing activity is no accident. Infringing
copies of PJAs are a cornerstone to ResearchGate’s growth strategy.
ResearchGate deliberately utilizes the infringing copies to grow the
traffic to its website, its base of registered users, its digital
content, and its revenues and investment from venture capital.
ResearchGate knows that the PJAs at issue cannot be lawfully uploaded
to and downloaded from the RG Website.  Nevertheless, in violation of
the rights of ACS, Elsevier, and others, ResearchGate uploads
infringing copies of PJAs and encourages and induces others to do so.
ResearchGate finds copies of the PJAs on the Internet and uploads them
to computer servers it owns or controls.  In addition, ResearchGate
lures others into uploading copies of the PJAs, including by directly
asking them to do so, encouraging use of a “request full-text”
feature, and misleadingly promoting the concept of “selfarchiving.”
ResearchGate is well aware that, as a result, it has turned the RG
Website into a focal point for massive copyright infringement.

[AND SO ON]