Sci-Hub versus Elsevier, latest round

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Bryan Alexander

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Jun 23, 2017, 8:47:35 AM6/23/17
to The Open Scholarship Initiative
Back to a topic from April's meeting:
"A New York district court awarded Elsevier US$15 million in damages for copyright infringement by Sci-Hub, the Library of Genesis (LibGen) project and related sites."
More:
"“The Court has not mistaken illegal activity for a public good,” said Maria A. Pallante, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers — a trade group that Elsevier belongs to — in a statement released on 22 June. “On the contrary, it has recognized the defendants’ operation for the flagrant and sweeping infringement that it really is and affirmed the critical role of copyright law in furthering scientific research and the public interest.”

But observers in academic publishing who are following the case have questioned whether Elsevier will ever see any damages from Elbakyan, who lives outside the court’s jurisdiction and has no assets in the United States. The ruling is also unlikely to prompt Sci-Hub or other pirate sites to close up shop.

Elbakyan could not be reached for comment.

“Sci-Hub is obviously illegal,” says structural biologist Stephen Curry at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. “But the fact that it is so immensely popular, inside and outside academia, is a symptom of many people’s frustration with the status quo in academic publishing.”"


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Glenn Hampson

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Jun 23, 2017, 12:25:18 PM6/23/17
to Bryan Alexander, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Thanks Bryan,

 

I know we’ve gone round the mulberry bush on this issue, but here’s a question for you and the group: Putting aside for a moment what it would take to make this happen, suppose OSI could help pioneer a legal SciHub---a common platform where all publishers put all materials in one place and these materials could be searched, organized, promoted, downloaded, etc.---an iTunes store for scholarly publishing. What would you be willing to pay for downloads in this kind of an environment? $1? $5? $40? Would there be some materials in this environment that could be made available for free (say, get 10 free downloads/mo by being a member)? The new/latest stuff would still be sold at a premium---just like with the movies you want to rent or books you want to buy. What would the business case be for trying this approach? More exposure for backlists, and ultimately more revenues? I know there are partial solutions already like ReadCube---this would be a full-on SciHub clone done the right way.

 

Before we all roll our eyes at the potential roadblocks here, I wonder if this might be worth a survey or two or three---gauge the potential interest from students, publishers, scientists, etc.

 

Are you covering anything like this in your Rogue Report?

 

Cheers,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
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Bryan Alexander

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Jun 23, 2017, 5:42:50 PM6/23/17
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What a great thought experiment, including the survey.  I vote that we try it out.

Our group did present on it.  Report's a-comin.

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Anthony Watkinson

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Jun 24, 2017, 5:25:08 AM6/24/17
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My memory is that STM Council examined a proposal along these lines over a decade ago. I think the originator of the proposal was Pieter Bolman now retired. STM are looking at a scheme which is somewhat different: http://www.stm-assoc.org/standards-technology/ra21-resource-access-21st-century/. For anyone who thinks anything STM thinks up must inherently be the work of the devil think CrossRef.

 

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Dr D.A. Kingsley

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Jun 24, 2017, 9:32:36 AM6/24/17
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Actually this raises a few different questions from my perspective in relation to how much it costs to download an individual paper from a publisher’s website. I have wondered about this for some time.

1. How is the amount the publisher charges for an individual article determined? It seems to be entirely arbitrary but I could be wrong. Is there a distinction in the cost based on anything like – length or type of article, whether the article contains many images, quality of the journal, number of downloads etc? 

2. How significant a source of revenue is this to the publishing industry. Are there any figures that are available that I could have a look at?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Danny

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Glenn Hampson

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Jun 24, 2017, 12:00:42 PM6/24/17
to Dr D.A. Kingsley, The Open Scholarship Initiative

If I can rephrase your request Danny, it would indeed be interesting to “see” some numbers. But this is all privileged information. Of course every publisher has these details, but they probably aren’t sharing spreadsheets with each other.  Maybe if we (a select group within OSI who sign a non-disclosure agreement) were trusted to deidentify and combine some numbers to get an aggregate sense of what this information looks like industry-wide it might help move the conversation forward---then everyone can get a better understanding of how their figures look compared to the aggregate and mean and get a better sense of the business needs, opportunities and risks here. Or maybe there are other ways to figure this out without asking Publishers X, Y and Z to open their private books to public inspection. Thoughts? Not to get too far ahead of ourselves….this idea may not have enough broad support to look into.

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Laurie Goodman

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Jun 24, 2017, 12:24:32 PM6/24/17
to Glenn Hampson, Danny Kingsley, The Open Scholarship Initiative
There info online for profits and profit margins for publishers.

E.g. last year Elsevier had a 37% profit margin.

In 2013 Mike Taylor wrote an article about publisher profits and margins.


I assume there is more recent info on all the publishers,  give a quick google on elsevier profiy margins 2016 brought me the 37% info.
Some publishers have profit margins reaching margins of nearly 50%.

So, they (and their investers) have a HUGE interest in protecting their assets, coming from papers written by people who's time is paid for by  grants and tax dollars, and accessed by the same grants and tax dollars.  And, for OA, APCs (sometimes with astronomical prices of upwards of $7000) paid by same. And hybrid models often double dipping, as The Welcome Trust found last year.)


So, those kind of numbers are available... I would provide more comprehensive numbers, but my internet is down, and it's a pain searching on my phone. 

L

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Mike Roy

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Jun 24, 2017, 12:39:55 PM6/24/17
to Dr D.A. Kingsley, The Open Scholarship Initiative
I would add to Dr. Kingsley's questions this: what does have to do with open access? An iTunes-like market for selling articles might be an improvement, but unless all of the articles are free, it strikes me as leading us in exactly the opposite direction of the goals and values of open access. Just saying!

Mike
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Mike Taylor

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Jun 24, 2017, 12:53:27 PM6/24/17
to Mike Roy, Dr D.A. Kingsley, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Exactly, Mike. My goal is not to improve the efficiently of the market for paying for access to articles, it's to eradicate that market.

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Mike Roy

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Jun 24, 2017, 12:56:55 PM6/24/17
to Mike Taylor, Dr D.A. Kingsley, The Open Scholarship Initiative
If iTunes is the model, this would just replace one market with another market, and unless all the articles were free, it would not be open access. Am I missing something?

Mike
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David Wojick

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Jun 24, 2017, 3:55:26 PM6/24/17
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At 12:24 PM 6/23/2017, you wrote:
Thanks Bryan,
 
I know we’ve gone round the mulberry bush on this issue, but here’s a question for you and the group: Putting aside for a moment what it would take to make this happen, suppose OSI could help pioneer a legal SciHub---a common platform where all publishers put all materials in one place and these materials could be searched, organized, promoted, downloaded, etc.---an iTunes store for scholarly publishing. What would you be willing to pay for downloads in this kind of an environment? $1? $5? $40? Would there be some materials in this environment that could be made available for free (say, get 10 free downloads/mo by being a member)? The new/latest stuff would still be sold at a premium---just like with the movies you want to rent or books you want to buy. What would the business case be for trying this approach? More exposure for backlists, and ultimately more revenues? I know there are partial solutions already like ReadCube---this would be a full-on SciHub clone done the right way.

 
Before we all roll our eyes at the potential roadblocks here, I wonder if this might be worth a survey or two or three---gauge the potential interest from students, publishers, scientists, etc.
 
Are you covering anything like this in your Rogue Report?
 
Cheers,
 
Glenn
 
 
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
National Science Communication Institute (nSCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
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(206) 417-3607 | gham...@nationalscience.org | nationalscience.org
 
 
 
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [ mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bryan Alexander
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2017 5:48 AM
To: The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Sci-Hub versus Elsevier, latest round
 
Back to a topic from April's meeting:
"A New York district court awarded Elsevier US$15 million in damages for copyright infringement by Sci-Hub, the Library of Genesis (LibGen) project and related sites."
https://www.nature.com/news/us-court-grants-elsevier-millions-in-damages-from-sci-hub-1.22196
More:
"“The Court has not mistaken illegal activity for a public good,†said Maria A. Pallante, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers — a trade group that Elsevier belongs to — in a statement releeased on 22 June. “On the contrary, it has recognized the defendants’ operation for the flagrant and sweeping infringement that it really is and affirmed the critical role of copyright law in furthering scientific research and the public interest.â€

But observers in academic publishing who are following the case have questioned whether Elsevier will ever see any damages from Elbakyan, who lives outside the court’s jurisdiction and has no assets in the United States. The ruling is also unlikely to prompt Sci-Hub or other pirate sites to close up shop.


Elbakyan could not be reached for comment.

“Sci-Hub is obviously illegal,†says structural biologist Stephen Curry at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. “But the fact that it is so immensely popular, inside and outside academia, is a symptom of many people’s frustration with the status quo in academic publishing.†"

Jo De

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Jun 24, 2017, 4:11:13 PM6/24/17
to Mike Roy, Dr D.A. Kingsley, The Open Scholarship Initiative
I think this has to do with open access because our discussions involve the various routes of dissemination of scholarly work. To someone with $35 or $135 to spend to access a paper online, the process is open to them to do that--there are no other restrictions to obtaining that article. The consequences of someone not obtaining the article through that channel is a very big question.

Mike

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Lorena A Barba

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Jun 25, 2017, 5:57:52 AM6/25/17
to Glenn Hampson, Lorena Barba, Bryan Alexander, The Open Scholarship Initiative
My reactions (as a researcher) to the thought experiment of a “legal Sci-Hub” and the question of “what would you be willing to pay” are: pre-prints and green open access; and, zero: downloads have to be free.

I have no interest in “the business case” for a pay-per-download model. The only acceptable models, in my eyes, are free at the point of access. 
_______________________________________
Lorena A. Barba
Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
The George Washington University
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Glenn Hampson

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Jun 25, 2017, 12:12:40 PM6/25/17
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Hi Mike, Mike, Laurie, Lorena:

 

Two thoughts here for your consideration:

 

  • “Profit margins” get bandied about in this conversation an awful lot, and always pejoratively. I don’t want to dive into that argument here, but just clarify that the numbers we need aren’t profits or margins, but revenue streams. For all we know, 80% of Acme Publishing’s backlist might be deadweight and account for only 10% of its revenues. Might it make sense to get these titles more visibility---maybe as $0.99 downloads, or maybe as loss-leaders to boost the visibility of frontlist titles? Are we really saying that “if”---and this is a real pie-in-the-sky-if, of course---but if a huge treasure trove of journal articles could somehow be assembled in one location and made available for free to cheap, we would actually turn our noses up at this prospect? Not me. But maybe that’s just me (hence maybe a survey would help here).
  • OSI isn’t about making everything free. It’s about increasing the availability and sustainability of open solutions. Not all of these solutions are going to look the same. Free, immediate, CC-BY solutions will be just one slice of the pie (as now). There are many other solutions that exist along the open spectrum and that shouldn’t be dismissed. The case OSI has been encouraging all along is that we can (and should) embrace a larger picture of open and then continue to work together to improve open outcomes----more access for everyone, more affordability (including but not limited to free), better standards, an improved culture of communications in academia (including how open is valued), incentives that don’t perpetuate market distortion (like impact factors), more reliability and confidence (with regard to peer review processes, for instance), and so on. If we focus only on free and immediate, we miss the much bigger picture here, and he we also miss many opportunities that might result in huge leaps forward for open.

 

Best,

Mike

Mike

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Christopher Erdmann

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Jun 25, 2017, 1:44:36 PM6/25/17
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Sorry to sound the pessimism horn here but I've heard from publishers both at OSI and other meetings that it will be difficult to compel them to participate in an iTunes model when there are significant segments of their readers that are still willing to pay a premium for access to research articles. 

I would be in favor of supporting initiatives like the open citations corpus to start or what Wikidata is doing to expand their citations corpus. If we truly want to be inclusive, this seems like the path of least resistance, where everyone agrees that making bibliographic, citation metadata free and open to enable new entrepreneurial activities (like Scholia) is a great place to start. In fact, I'd like to host that smaller meeting at the NCSU Libraries, a directed OSI meeting to get all the major players in the room to expand this corpus. I know from previous experience working with the NASA ADS that overarching services based primarily on metadata and that facilitate access to research are overwhelmingly appreciated by the astrophysics community. What separates NASA ADS from Google Scholar is that entrepreneurial/librarian approaches to curating and enhancing linked data to feedback and improve the search functionality are missing in a closed system like Google's. It takes roughly a couple of million dollars to run a small service like the NASA ADS (I can be off with that number by the way), so this won't be cheap doing this on a wider, community basis. There are also other services in this space worth mentioning and they should be at the table. 

In our Rogue/NEATO group, I advocated for us to support the open citations corpus initiative and would love to see OSI get behind this. We can discuss publishing models all day long, meanwhile, there are a number of innovations happening in the publishing space, we should enable them via a universal open citations corpus platform. 

My two cents,
Chris

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Anthony Watkinson

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Jun 25, 2017, 1:52:39 PM6/25/17
to Christopher Erdmann, Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

My experience as a publisher was that PPV income was not significant: it could have changed. It was never a satisfactory system

Certainly the researchers I interview (admittedly ECRs) NEVER use PPV. As a researcher I cannot imagine doing so

Maybe some active publishers on the list can comment

Anthony

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Erdmann
Sent: 25 June 2017 18:45
To: Glenn Hampson
Cc: The Open Scholarship Initiative
Subject: Re: Sci-Hub versus Elsevier, latest round

 

Sorry to sound the pessimism horn here but I've heard from publishers both at OSI and other meetings that it will be difficult to compel them to participate in an iTunes model when there are significant segments of their readers that are still willing to pay a premium for access to research articles. 

Mike

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Mike Taylor

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Jun 25, 2017, 3:04:19 PM6/25/17
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
I'm not really too bothered about profit margins, as I have written several times, e.g.

But I absolutely care about freedom. Not just lowered cost of access -- to me, one penny is too much to pay for access to research. Heck, zero cost is too much if it requires some form of registration. "Free as in freedom", like the man said. That includes freedom to re-use, not just to read. That's why from my perspective, the "iTunes model" is not merely insufficient, it's actively harmful, providing a distraction from the real issue.

-- Mike.





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Joyce Ogburn

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Jun 25, 2017, 3:16:03 PM6/25/17
to Christopher Erdmann, Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
You might add patent information to the mix.  Joyce

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margaretwinker

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Jun 26, 2017, 1:46:22 AM6/26/17
to The Open Scholarship Initiative
Interesting issues. I believe the PPV price is set (by some, at least in part) on what the market will bear. To an editor or author, an article in high demand has high impact/high public health value, therefore should be free (or as close to free as possible) to serve the public good. To a publisher or economist, the article in high demand should have a higher cost. Both are right in their own disciplines. I "know" (based on moral high ground--but what if lack of revenue constrains further research?) my discipline is right, but whose perspective is correct? Would the answer change if authors received royalties on their publications?
Margaret

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Alexander Garcia Castro

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Jun 26, 2017, 6:08:40 AM6/26/17
to Mike Taylor, Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
I could not agree with you more on this "free as in freedom". Beyond that, I cant see the so called added value that APCs bring in to the table; all I can see is just that we are still in netscape era (PDF and HTML). if APC is for peer review then this is bad value for money because I have not yet seen more than a few really reproducible papers. What am I getting out of what ever I pay to publishers? nothing. archiving? not really. Data? not at all. discoverability? not at all. innovation in scholarly communication? not at all. and for everything else that comes to my mind: not at all is the answer. 

free because it is the moral right thing to do. free because it is with tax payers money that we do research. We do the work (research and writing) with out a dime from publishers but we pay them to "publish" our own writings.  we review for free, and then we have to pay to access our own stuffs... where is the logic there? it is an immoral business that we have preserved and something about we, the research community, are shy about. we are not clear in our own bottomline. While we argue about it companies like elsevier are just building monopolies on everything scholar. they have lab information management systems, data repositories, companies doing data analytics on scholarly outcomes and on top of that they also happen to be a publisher. For a LOT less others have been found guilty of monopolistic activities. While they do this, we researchers keep arguing on things that are really not important. 

Where is john galt in science? certainly, not doing a phd but most likely starting his own publishing house with a horizontal business integration. why do we need publishers at all and what are we paying for? how are we working towards preserving and freeing data from falling within an immoral business model like the one we built for our own publications? how are we going to preserve data and protocols used to produce such data? how are we moving away from the current narrative-based practice into a nanopublication Research Object-based writing that is both machine procesable and human consumable? how are we supporting self publications? how are we making sure that all that is produced throughout the research life cycle is accounted for? how are we moving from paper based metrics into RO based metrics? how is it possible that we keep thinking about ways to preserve what is wrong (paper based) instead of looking ahead and moving into a better system? 
Alexander Garcia
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David Wojick

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Jun 26, 2017, 7:19:13 AM6/26/17
to osi20...@googlegroups.com
My impression is that important articles are sometimes make OA. But overall the pricing model for per article sales is probably along the following lines. First, the sum of per article prices should not be lower than the subscription price, lest people not subscribe. It should probably be significantly higher, lest people just buy the articles they want. In this sense the subscription is a mini form of the big deal.

Second, per article sales involve a separate purchase and fulfillment system so that needs to be paid for. Call this the hassle factor.

David
Inside Public Access

Jo De

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Jun 26, 2017, 9:22:58 AM6/26/17
to David Wojick, osi20...@googlegroups.com
Two major sources of published scholarly work are educational institutions, (primarily non-profit, no matter how wealthy) and non-profit research institutions with a mission to serve humanity.  I am not sure just how much we should let these groups off the hook when their output has, in fact, become inaccessible to all potential users. I am not sure that even allowing the general public physical access to every university library can make up for the barriers that paywalls now create. But I do think that educational access for the wealthy only is a huge disservice to humanity and that those who enter higher education have and should maintain an expectation of equality.

On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 7:23 AM, David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us> wrote:
My impression is that important articles are sometimes make OA. But overall the pricing model for per article sales is probably along the following lines. First, the sum of per article prices should not be lower than the subscription price, lest people not subscribe. It should probably be significantly higher, lest people just buy the articles they want. In this sense the subscription is a mini form of the big deal.

Second, per article sales involve a separate purchase and fulfillment system so that needs to be paid for. Call this the hassle factor.

David
Inside Public Access

On Jun 26, 2017, at 1:45 AM, margaretwinker <margare...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting issues. I believe the PPV price is set (by some, at least in part) on what the market will bear. To an editor or author, an article in high demand has high impact/high public health value, therefore should be free (or as close to free as possible) to serve the public good. To a publisher or economist, the article in high demand should have a higher cost. Both are right in their own disciplines. I "know" (based on moral high ground--but what if lack of revenue constrains further research?) my discipline is right, but whose perspective is correct? Would the answer change if authors received royalties on their publications?
> Margaret
>
> Margaret Winker, MD
> Trustee, WAME
> ***
> wame.org
> http://wame.blog
> @WAMedEditors
> www.facebook.com/WAMEmembers
>
> --
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Mike Roy

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Jun 26, 2017, 10:36:55 AM6/26/17
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Glenn,
This thread seems to be heading us back into the usual territory of
fundamental philosophical differences. Here are my reactions to your
two thoughts:


>
>
> “Profit margins” get bandied about in this conversation an awful lot, and always pejoratively.

I would recommend Mark Edington's paper "The Commons of Scholarly
Communication: Beyond the Firm" at
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/1/the-commons-of-scholarly-communication-beyond-the-firm
which does a nice job of laying out an alternative to a market based
model.




>
> OSI isn’t about making everything free.


In terms of a definition of open, I like Peter Suber's, which is
"Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions."
(https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm) . To me, there
is not a version of open that isn't free to the reader.


-- mike




>
>
>
> Best,
>
>
>
> Glenn
>
>
>
> Glenn Hampson
> Executive Director
> National Science Communication Institute (nSCI)
> Program Director
> Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
>

Glenn Hampson

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Jun 26, 2017, 1:35:23 PM6/26/17
to Christopher Erdmann, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Great idea Chris—I look forward to seeing this in your paper.

 

WRT to your pessimism, fair enough. But I’m pessimistic about this pessimism 😊 Study after study has shown that pirates (usually early adopters in the 18-40-ish age range) value convenience much more than price. They steal content because they see this stealing as a victimless crime, and because the pirate platforms are just way more convenient than the legal platforms. And the vast majority would be willing to pay some nominal amount for this product---again, because this is much more about access than about price. Here’s one article of many on this issue: http://www.news.com.au/technology/internet-pirates-say-theyd-pay-for-legal-downloads/news-story/703dbe22813d1e0b18e8afccfb467039.

 

So yes---even though there are readers who are “willing” to pay a premium for pay-per-view access, there may also be a vastly larger market of readers who can be drawn into a value-priced scholcomm ecosystem supported by advertising, value-added services, premium membership features and so on (remember---this is a market that is larger than just academia and also includes industry, governments, non-university research institutions and the private sector). And who knows---maybe 80% of the millions of articles that can be available on this kind of site would be free to read and cite (copyright would still apply to many of these older articles, so the reuse would still follow current norms), and the remaining 20% would be available for full-text searching, comparison, etc. Imagine all the competition you’d get in this kind of environment---you can choose from two nearly identical studies but one is priced at $7.99 and includes the full dataset, while another is $40 and has no data. Yes---there would still a pricetag attached in some cases---but the incentives (remember what Vint Cerf was saying) would start to get better aligned with this kind of setup. And think of the potential inroads that could be made here---anti-piracy, institutional repository communication, lower prices, archive access, etc. I know this isn’t the be all end all, and it may even be a non-starter----but this single platform approach (like the ASR) gives the effort to achieve more open a compelling focus and a tangible, buildable, sustainable vehicle to use a starting point, and one that has broad, common value to all stakeholders involved.

 

From: Christopher Erdmann [mailto:ccer...@ncsu.edu]
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 10:45 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Cc: The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Sci-Hub versus Elsevier, latest round

 

Sorry to sound the pessimism horn here but I've heard from publishers both at OSI and other meetings that it will be difficult to compel them to participate in an iTunes model when there are significant segments of their readers that are still willing to pay a premium for access to research articles. 

Mike

Mike

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http://twitter.com/BryanAlexander  

Future Trends in Technology and Education, http://ftte.us/ 

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Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype:  roymichaeldonald

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Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype:  roymichaeldonald

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