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Germany's DEAL project (in German), which includes over 60 major research institutions, has announced that all of its members are canceling their subscriptions to all of Elsevier's academic and scientific journals, effective January 1, 2017.
The boycott is in response to Elsevier's refusal to adopt "transparent business models" to "make publications more openly accessible."
Elsevier is notorious even among academic publishers for its hostility to open access, but it also publishes some of the most prestigious journals in many fields. This creates a vicious cycle, where the best publicly funded research is published in Elsevier journals, which then claims ownership over the research (Elsevier, like most academic journals, requires authors to sign their copyrights over, though it does not pay them for their writing, nor does it pay for their research expenses). Then, the public institutions that are producing this research have to pay very high costs to access the journals in which it appears. Journal prices have skyrocketed over the past 40 years.
No one institution can afford to boycott Elsevier, but collectively, the institutions have great power.
Germany-wide consortium of research libraries announce boycott of Elsevier journals over open access.
No full-text access to Elsevier journals to be expected from 1 January 2017 on.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 27 2016, @08:52PM
Decisive action needs to be taken. They own the copyright on lots of articles, they make billions in revenue with a large profit margin, and the papers are still not open access.
Post your solution to the problem.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:36PM
My proposal is for universities and government bureaus that provide funding grants to prohibit their professors/researchers from publishing with any company that demands more than three years of exclusivity. This may require creating an alternative non-profit publishing service to fill in for Elsevier's journals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:40PM
That doesn't liberate all the vast amount of knowledge they're already holding hostage however.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @11:54PM
>"That doesn't liberate all the vast amount of knowledge they're already holding hostage however."
You are right, and I don't have a good proposal for fixing that. Possibly, if everyone abandons Elsevier and they go bankrupt, their repository will become available for an affordable price.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:10AM
I believe you already hit the nail on the head square on, Takyon:
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:33AM
Tongue in cheek solution - anyone wishing to assert copyright on a paper must have a large banner saying "these are not facts" on every page!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:10AM
Decisive action needs to be taken. They own the copyright on lots of articles, they make billions in revenue with a large profit margin, and the papers are still not open access.
Post your solution to the problem.
No need to, someone or other earlier on already did it with the best possible solution...
...Or better yet, invalidate copyright on scientific knowledge.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.