[IRTalk] Working the Law Against Its Intent: Policing Access to Research/John Willinsky

[Ina Smith]

http://www.slaw.ca/2017/11/10/working-the-law-against-its-intent-policing-access-to-research/

The current series of legal kerfuffles in scholarly publishing involves property and access rights in an industry that is, for all intents and purposes, moving toward universal open access. Let's begin with recent moves by Elsevier, the largest of scholarly publishing corporations with over 2,000 journals, and the American Chemical Society, among the richest of the non-profit societies. These two entities have recently been awarded damages of $15 million<https://www.nature.com/news/us-court-grants-elsevier-millions-in-damages-from-sci-hub-1.22196> (June 2017) and $4.8 million<https://github.com/stevemclaugh/american_chemical_society_v_does_1-99/blob/master/American_Chemical_Society_v_Does_1-99__vaedce-17-00726__0022.0.pdf> (September 2017) respectively by the U.S. courts, in light of Sci-Hub database, (which I have addressed earlier<http://www.slaw.ca/2016/04/28/scholarly-publishing-has-its-napster-moment/>) providing free access to the better part of the research articles they each publish and for which they alone hold the copyright.

Ina Smith
Project Manager: African Open Science Platform<http://africanopenscience.org.za/>
SciELO Planning Manager
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
DOAJ Ambassador, Southern Africa Region<https://blog.doaj.org/2016/09/07/the-doaj-ambassadors-biographies/>
LIASA Librarian of the Year 2016<https://loy2016blog.wordpress.com/>

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