Publishers settle copyright legal battle with ResearchGate

Leading publishing companies have resolved their lengthy legal dispute with ResearchGate after reaching a “technical solution”.

Elseiver and the American Chemical Society (ACS) had ordered the academic social network to take down papers that they said infringed copyright.

But following years of dispute, the members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing have agreed to a legal settlement with ResearchGate that ensures copyright-compliant sharing, meaning the lawsuits in Germany and the US are resolved.

At the point of upload, the ResearchGate platform will check rights information for content published by ACS and Elsevier. ResearchGate will then immediately determine how the content can be shared on its site.

James Milne, chair of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing and president of ACS Publications, said the settlement was “good news for researchers”.

“Asking the courts to resolve ResearchGate’s responsibilities in connection with copyright compliance was a necessary step,” he said. Publishers in the Coalition for Responsible Sharing actively promote and enable the sharing of research articles as they support researchers to make progress that benefits society.

“We’re pleased that this settlement helps remove uncertainty for researchers sharing their work on the ResearchGate site.”

The specific terms of the parties’ settlement are confidential.

A separate group of publishers – Springer Nature, Cambridge University Press and the German medical publisher Thieme – had previously stuck a deal with ResearchGate that allows academics to upload papers without having them pre-screened to comply with copyright.

Ijad Madisch, co-founder and chief executive of ResearchGate, said the announcement marked a new chapter in the relationship between the three firms.

He said the automated solution will make it easier for authors to share work published with ACS and Elsevier on ResearchGate.

“This automated solution performs a series of checks to determine applicable sharing options at the point of upload – with no additional overhead for researcher,” he said.

“This helps scientists and researchers who use ResearchGate every day, and we look forward to continuing to work with publishers across the industry to deliver the best solutions for researchers.”

Authors can store their copyrighted ACS- and Elsevier-published Version of Record articles privately in their ResearchGate profiles and share them privately when requested by other users. The platform also identifies articles that may be shared publicly.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com