Artificial intelligence in academic practices and policy discourses across ‘Big 5’ publishers
#AczlPetra #ArtificialIntelligence #Elsevier #GergelyFerencLendvai #Sage #ScholarlyPublishing #ScholarlyPublishingMarket #ScientificCommunication #Springer #TaylorFrancis #Wiley
Fun fact: Taylor & Francis run their digital library on a single 1TB hard drive. They will purchase a second hard drive early 2026 (€59 ships within 10 days). Until that time: please do not publish with them. #TaylorFrancis, #OpenAccess, #OAWeek
The maximum number of articles that can be published open access in hybrid Taylor and Francis journals in 2025 has been reached. If you wish to publish open access via Taylor and Francis before 1 January 2026, there will be a charge.
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
<p>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. …</p>
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:
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
<p>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 …</p>
Academic Journal #Publishers #Antitrust Litigation
https://www.lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/academic-journals/
#elsevier #springernature #JohnWiley #WoltersKluwer #Sage #TaylorFrancis #STM #publishing #ScholComm #scholarlyCommunication #openscience #justice #lawsuit #journals #LieffCabraser
Academic Journal Publishers Antitrust Litigation On September 12, 2024, Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel at Justice Catalyst Law filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against six commercial publishers of academic journals, including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor and Francis, Sage, Wiley, and Wolters Kluwer, on behalf of a proposed class of scientists and scholars
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