EDU-TAKEDOWN: Academia.edu bases its academic journal-sharing capabilities on the belief that academics enjoy sharing their writings with the world. And enjoy it, they do--Academia.edu currently claims that 6 million academics have signed up. But that popularity didn't stop journal publisher Elsevier from sending thousands of requests for Academia.edu to take down academic journals last week. On Friday, Academia.edu CEO Richard Price reported to VentureBeat that the number of DMCAs (takedown notices) went from "one or two" a week to "notices in batches of a thousand for papers that academics had uploaded to the site."
The reasoning behind Elsevier's wave of DMCAs? "We aim to ensure that the final published version of an article is readily discoverable and citable via the journal itself in order to maximize the usage metrics and credit for our authors," said Tom Reller, Elsevier’s vice president for global corporate relations, in a statement released last week. Read here for the full story.
UPDATE: Richard Price reported to EdSurge on December 10 that all the papers were taken down for which DMCA requests were received.
