[GOAL] What to Do About Elsevier Double-Talk on Take-Down Notices

[Stevan Harnad]

Paradoxically, publisher take-down notices for the publisher's proprietary 
PDF version-of-record are a good thing for the adoption of sensible, effective 
OA policies and practices: Sleep-walking authors and their institutions need to 
be awakened to the pragmatics and implications of the difference between the 
author's final, peer-reviewed, revised, accepted version and the 
publisher's PDF version-of-record: Green OA is all about the former, not the latter.

Do follow Peter Suber's wise advice to authors to try to retain their right to 
self-archive with OA un-embargoed -- but also deposit your final draft immediately 
upon acceptance whether or not you make your deposit OA immediately; and 
make sure your institution and funder both adopt an immediate institutional deposit
mandate to ensure that all researchers deposit immediately. (And 
remember that this all concerns the author's final draft, not the publisher's 
PDF version-of-record.)

See Exchange on Elsevier Website regarding Elsevier Take-Down Notices 
(and please note that this concerns only authors' final drafts, not Elsevier's 
PDF version-of-record):

December 17, 2013 at 9:05 pm
Stevan Harnad: Tom, I wonder if it would be possible to drop the double-talk
and answer a simple question: Do or do not Elsevier authors retain the right 
to make their peer-reviewed final drafts on their own institutional websites
immediately, with no embargo? Just a Yes or No, please… Stevan

December 18, 2013 at 2:36 pm
Tom Reller (Elsevier): Hello Dr. Harnad. I don’t agree with your 
characterization of our explanation here, but nevertheless as requested,
there is a simple answer to your question – yes. Thank you.

December 20, 2013
Stevan Harnad: Tom, thank you. Then I suggest that the institutions 
[and funders] of Elsevier authors ignore the Elsevier take-down notices 
(and also adopt an immediate-deposit mandate that is immune to all 
publisher take-down notices by requiring immediate deposit, whether 
or not access to the immediate-deposit is made immediately OA)… Stevan 

On 2013-12-17, at 3:41 PM, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:

> Everybody calm down…
> 
> If Elsevier sends a take-down notice to a university, you have two simple options:
> 
> (1) Leave it up, and send the notice back to Elsevier with a copy of Elsevier's policy on self-archiving.
> 
> OR
> 
> (2) Re-set access as Closed Access and rely on the repository's copy-request Button.
> 
> (If the take-down notice was because you deposited the publisher's PDF, make the publisher's PDF Closed Access and deposit the author's final draft instead, and make that OA.)
> 
> And fix your mandate to make sure it specifies that the author's final draft should be deposited immediately upon acceptance for publication, not the publisher's PDF.
> 
> Stevan Harnad
> 
> 
> On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> In a blog post
> http://svpow.com/2013/12/17/elsevier-steps-up-its-war-on-access/ 
> Mike Taylor reports that
> The University of Calgary has just sent this notice to all staff:
> 
> The University of Calgary has been contacted by a company representing the publisher, Elsevier Reed, regarding certain Elsevier journal articles posted on our publicly accessible university web pages. We have been provided with examples of these articles and reviewed the situation. Elsevier has put the University of Calgary on notice that these publicly posted Elsevier journal articles are an infringement of Elsevier Reed’s copyright and must be taken down.
> 
> We are now in the position - which many of us foresaw many years ago - that if Green Open Access started to hurt publishers they would arbitrarily close it down or otherwise make it difficult. 
> 
> Green OA is not a right, nor a contractual agreement and can be withdrawn at any time. The danger for the publisher is bad publicity but this seems to be a weak constraint.
> 
> Others may debate why Elsevier has done this - maybe the papers aren't on the right web pages, maybe the University has a mandate (which invalidates Green OA as far as Elsevier is concerned), maybe it's a foulup , maybe...
> 
> The simple truth is that this is the end of the road for many of us. We are not working with publishers, we are fighting them.
> 
> Open Access is about justice. 
> 
> This is not.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
> 
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