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Another day, another Elsevier website illegally selling articles

Elsevier seem to have responded to my criticism yesterday and have stopped selling the article “HIV infection en route to endogenization: two cases” from their ScienceDirect website. Take what you will from that change, but I infer that they have realised that they are in the wrong.

Actually, they are still selling it from the ScienceDirect website too. It only looked freely available to me because I myself had paid for access to it & I guess a cookie remembered me. It’s still on sale at ScienceDirect.com as well as clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com

Further update: As of 2015-03-09 17.13 PM the articles were finally freely available ‘unchained'(?) from behind Elsevier’s paywalls.

 

So I was very surprised to find when I woke up this morning (2015-03-07), that this article, and many other CC-licensed articles in that journal are still being sold via other Elsevier-owned websites e.g. the one below: http://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(15)60028-3/abstract

2015-03-07-091854_1332x1045_scrot

I couldn’t believe my eyes, so just to make sure they really were still illegally selling this article that shouldn’t be sold, I made another test purchase:

2015-03-07-092852_1332x1045_scrot

I heard back from Didier (the corresponding author) yesterday. He does not know why Elsevier are selling his article, nor did he give them permission to.

Elsevier (RELX Group) have been doing this for many years now: selling open access articles that authors/funders have paid-for to make freely available to everyone. Peter Murray-Rust, Mike Taylor and others have written about this extensively.

It is little wonder then that Elsevier is the most boycotted academic publishing company in the world: nearly 15,000 researchers have publicly declared they want nothing to do with this company.

I am yet to receive a refund or an apology. Alicia Wise did tweet me this:

“.@emckiernan13 .@TomReller .@rmounce the journal is in transition from Wiley to Elsevier; will check on transition status” https://twitter.com/wisealic/status/573948162794196992 but it is of little help…

Will I get my money back? I hope so…


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10 responses to “Another day, another Elsevier website illegally selling articles”

  1. Mike Taylor Avatar
    Mike Taylor

    “Elsevier seem to have responded to my criticism yesterday and have stopped selling the article “HIV infection en route to endogenization: two cases” from their ScienceDirect website. Take what you will from that change, but I infer that they have realised that they are in the wrong.”

    Not for me: when I look at that ScienceDirect page, the article is still paywalled.

    This is either an astonishing level of incompetence, or an astonishing level of mendacity. I really don’t think there’s a third option.

  2. Ross Mounce Avatar

    You’re right. Perhaps it only looked free to me because I had paid for it. So confusing…!

  3. Alicia Wise Avatar
    Alicia Wise

    Hi Ross,

    This title recently transferred from Wiley to Elsevier and there was some missing metadata for some of the OA articles. Thanks for flagging this up. We are taking steps to add the metadata to the articles today, and will of course reimburse you for your purchases. We will also investigate whether anyone else has purchased PPV access to the articles, and reimburse them as necessary.

    Please note that there is one issue of possible misunderstanding in your blog post. There is a difference between the rights the publisher has in the article as a result of our license to publish, and the rights conveyed to end-users by the CC-BY-NC-ND license.

    With very kind wishes,
    Alicia
    Dr Alicia Wise
    Director of Access & Policy
    Elsevier
    a.wise@elsevier.com
    @wisealic

    1. Ross Mounce Avatar

      Dear Alicia,

      Many thanks for committing to reimburse me for my purchases.

      May I ask how, when and who from Elsevier obtained their ‘license to publish’ from the copyright holders (the authors of the work)?

      I am in contact with the corresponding author and I don’t believe he/they gave Elsevier a ‘license to publish’. They did however grant that license to Wiley, where it was originally published. Wiley cannot simply transfer this ‘license to publish’ to Elsevier, without the explicit permission of the copyright holders (the authors). Did you obtain the permission of all the copyright holders to re-publish this work?

      You should not need reminding that this has happened many many times before at Elsevier.

      e.g. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/elsevier-bumps-on-road-to-open-access/2012238.article

      http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2014/03/15/elsevier-are-still-mis-selling-open-access-and-behaving-illegally/

      It seems to me that Elsevier is a very careless publisher, consistently riding roughshod over the rights & intents of auhtors, funders and readers across the world.

      1. Alicia Wise Avatar
        Alicia Wise

        Hi Ross,

        Happy to share this additional information. Authors in this title grant publishing rights to the Society which owns the title, and the Society has the right to sub-license these rights to a publisher. They Society has recently switched from Wiley to Elsevier. We are very happy that Clinical Microbiology& Infection has joined our infectious diseases publishing portfolio (www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com).

        Thanks,
        Alicia
        Dr Alicia Wise
        Director of Access & Policy
        Elsevier
        a.wise@elsevier.com
        @wisealic

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