We hosted Prof Fernando Racimo speaking about Degrowing Academia. You are the resistance. Use your position to look for better ways of being academia - and do it together with others. @Elsevier@elsevierconnect.bsky.social, @Springer Nature@springernature.com, #wiley, #taylor&francis, #degrowth
#taylorFrancis
Endspurt: Noch bis Freitag läuft eine NRW-weite Umfrage zur Qualität einiger wissenschaftlicher Verlage: https://www.ulb.uni-muenster.de/fachblog/archiv/9003
Wir wünschen uns zahlreiche Teilnahmen, um unsere Überlegungen zu Services v.a. rund um #OpenAccess weiter verbessern zu können!
#DeGruyter #Elsevier #Frontiers #MDPI #SpringerNature #TaylorFrancis #Wiley
Where open access has failed to reform academic publishing, perhaps antitrust law will succeed
The open access movement has been trying for over 20 years to promote the widest access to knowledge. Sadly, as numerous Walled Culture posts have chronicled, what should be a matter of social justice has been subverted by clever and cynical moves from the academic publishing industry in order to retain their fabulous profit margins. As a result, the open access movement has failed to deliver […]
#AccessToKnowledge #antiTrust #damages #elsevier #embargo #ingelfingerRule #injunctiveRelief #openAccess #peerReview #sage #sharing #springerNature #taylorFrancis #wiley #woltersKluwer
It seems appropriate to pass on news of a federal antitrust lawsuit being brought in the United States against six commercial academic publishers, including the “Big Four” (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley). The case is filed by lawyers Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein. The plaintiff is Lucina Uddin, Professor of Psychology at UCLA.
I suggest you read the full document linked to above for details, but in a nutshell the case alleges three anticompetitive practices:
- agreeing to “fix the price..at zero” for the labour of authors and peer reviewers;
- agreeing not to compete for manuscripts by forcing authors to submit to one journal at a time;
- agreeing to prohibit authors from sharing their work while under peer review, “a process that often takes over a year”
I’ve spoken to a few people who know a bit about US law on such matters and they all say that the plaintiff’s legal representatives have a good track record on antitrust litigation. Nevertheless, there is some doubt about whether the case is winnable but at the very least it will bring a lot of attention to the Academic Journal Racket, so is probably a good move even if it doesn’t succeed. If it does succeed, however, it might blow a hole in the entire commercial publishing industry, which would be an even better move…
As an interesting postscript (found here) is that, in 2002, the UK Office of Fair Trading reviewed complaints about anticompetitive practices in academic publishing; see here. It found market distortions but decided not to act because of the recent rise of Open Access. I quote
It is too early to assess what will be the impact of this … but there is a possibility that it will be a powerful restraint on exploiting positional advantage in the STM journals market.
Now that 22 years have passed, is it still too early?
P.S. Comments from legal experts would be especially welcome!
https://telescoper.blog/2024/09/25/the-case-against-academic-publishers/
#academicPublishing #Elsevier #SpringerNature #TaylorFrancis #TheAcademicJournalRacket #Wiley
Juicy licensing deals with AI companies show that publishers don’t really care about creators
One of the many interesting aspects of the current enthusiasm for generative AI is the way that it has electrified the formerly rather sleepy world of copyright. Where before publishers thought they had successfully locked down more or less everything digital with copyright, they now find themselves confronted with deep-pocketed companies – both established ones like Google and Microsoft, […]
#academicPublishers #authors #creators #genai #generativeAi #google #licensing #linkTax #microsoft #newspaperPublishers #openai #publishers #taylorFrancis #training #wiley
@rwg @giovannamas having just been asked to review for a TF journal, no thanks: "Given the recent decision of T&F to exploit their authors by signing over their rights to an AI company, I cannot in good conscience perform free services for this publisher until the situation is resolved."
#TaylorFrancis #generativeAI
📬 Link-Busters verlangt wöchentlich 56 Mio. Löschungen von Google
#EBooks #DMCALöschanfragen #LinkBusters #MITPress #RandomHouse #TaylorFrancis https://sc.tarnkappe.info/2a3591
"Innovative Open Research Publisher PeerJ Joins Taylor & Francis" https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284888962/innovative-open-research-publisher-peerj-joins-taylor-francis/
#PeerJ #TaylorFrancis
Small academic scream:
Why the fuck aren't journal articles Left Aligned? I'm so fucking sick of trying to read Justified text and EPub versions don't seem to be savable. If anyone on @academicchatter or @academicsunite has an in with #Springer #TaylorFrancis etc, please BEG them to make their shit accessible!
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