From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2019 07:55:29 +0100I am fascinated by Eric’s assurance. Is this based on any special evidence which he can produce? He may well have done a study on how publishers think which is not known to me and which I cannot detect.
Anthony
From: Eric Elmore <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2019 17:07:19 +0000
I think a more accurate way of understanding this statement is that
it's in the back of the mind of every Publisher, rather than in the
minds of the Librarians. Librarians are interested in getting the
most content and value for our dwindling budgets in an ethical manner.
Not an easy or simple task. Publishers, on the other hand, are
concerned with extracting every penny, ruble, shekel, pence, yuan,
yen, and/or ounce of blood they can from anyone who wants to use the
content they "publish".
It's Capitalism 101. Once you understand the frame of mind someone
who works for a publisher, of course they think libraries are
leveraging a free resource such as SciHub. Because that's exactly
what they would do if they were in the libraries position. When the
only objective is the endless acquisition of money silly little things
like whether or not a resource is legal or ethical no longer have
relevance.