Researchers don’t want any settlement between Meta and Elsevier
A legal settlement between Meta and Elsevier could allow the former to train its language models using licensed content from the latter.
It seems it’s ultimately all about the money. | Photo: Ben Margot / Keystone
Elsevier is the first scientific publisher to join the class action against the tech giant Meta, claiming that it has disregarded copyright law. Its co-plaintiffs are the author Scott Turow and a number of large book publishers, including Hachette and Macmillan.
But according to David Hansen, the director of the non-profit organisation Authors Alliance, “many academic authors in this class will not be enthusiastic about Elsevier representing their interests in court”. In fact, many have already been boycotting Elsevier publicly on account of its own business practices. Hansen also fears that the class action could result in a settlement that would allow Meta to train its language models using licensed content from Elsevier. Such licensing agreements would bring little benefit to researchers or science authors.
