As I see it, the authors must retain all their copyrights, because any valid transfer of copyright would entail valuable consideration from Elsevier to the author. The authors pay Elsevier to coordinate peer review and publish using their brand names. This necessarily includes granting a license to Elsevier to copy and distribute the author's work.<p>Now, there may be other contract terms that are not obvious. One such term may be that the author not publish the work himself. The worst that could happen here is breach of contract. Since the only up-front consideration was from the author, this just means that Elsevier doesn't need to do what the author paid them to do, while still keeping the consideration of cash plus copyright license. It's sole remedy is to not coordinate peer review and not publish. Since it ALSO charges fees on that end, it has no reason to do that.<p>There must be a quid pro quo in a lawful contract. You can't bind someone to its terms unless you give them some valuable thing in return. Elsevier gives NOTHING to the author except the promise of publication and distribution. You can never prevent the author from making his own copies, ever. Your sole remedy is to write a penalty for doing so into the contract, but then you would have to PAY the author something to enforce it.<p>Elsevier does not give the authors anything, therefore they cannot demand performance under the contract. The only thing they can do is use one of those restrictive terms to weasel out of their own obligations under the contract while still keeping what the author gave them. They are absolutely in the wrong by demanding people take down their own work.<p>(I am not a lawyer.)
When you agree to publish with Elsevier, you sign a contract where you agree not to publish the final version of the article on-line. Many (most?) Elsevier journals DO permit you to post the so-called "author's manuscript" if you also include the appropriate disclaimer. (Whether this is permitted is also written in the contract you sign.)<p>For example: <a href="http://zvrba.net/writings/fusion.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://zvrba.net/writings/fusion.pdf</a><p>In that light, I don't think Elsevier is the worst among bad guys. For example, you're also permitted to upload the unreviewed version to arxiv before submitting it to journal. Some other journals will outright reject the article because of its "prior publication".
<i>I thought Elsevier was already doing all it could to alienate the authors who freely donate their work to shore up the corporation’s obscene profits.</i><p>This is not a statement that I would expect to see in a well-balanced post containing sensible discussion about the pressing requirement for more open access.<p>The full details on author rights are publicly available on Elsevier's site at <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-responsibilities" rel="nofollow">http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-re...</a> - and as far as I'm aware, their current round of legal threats doesn't contradict that.<p>Open access is REALLY, REALLY important to the future of science, but we won't get anywhere by misrepresenting the current state of affairs.
I know 90%+ of the HN crowd sides, with good reason, against Elsevier, but I’d like us to not use the word “war” unless there is mutual, systematic murder between enemies.<p>War is a terrible thing. We shouldn’t water down our only real word for it by applying it too loosely.
Pretty much most of elsevier works are available on pirate sites, all they are doing is harassing their customers by this stage and further alienating them.
I'm confused -- does Elsevier let you post your own articles on your own website (university-sponsored or otherwise)? If it does, then Elsevier isn't exactly suppressing the free dissemination of research.<p>The answer probably lies in the meaning of the third checkmarked item on <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-responsibilities" rel="nofollow">http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-re...</a>, which says the following is allowed:<p>Sharing individual articles with colleagues for their research use (also known as 'scholarly sharing')
Maybe as this racket dies, slowly we'll see tuition fees drop accordingly. But I'm not holding my breath.<p>I always thought a significant share of my tuition payments must have been allocated to cover overpriced library subscriptions. I would go so far as to say these publishers indirectly make university more expensive; because the absurdly high cost of the subscriptions must surely passed on to students.
This reads as being very butt-hurt that somebody else chooses not to give away their core business. It is cool that you see profit as something obscene, but don't blame others for making a business.<p>Same goes for sending takedown notices. If you are technically in breach, you are in breach.<p>If you don't want to do business with Elsevier, that is fine. If you don't want others to do so, that is fine too. This is just being sad.