A split has opened up between big publishers over how to tackle copyright-infringing articles uploaded to the academic social network ResearchGate.

One group of publishers ¨C Springer Nature, Cambridge University Press and the German medical publisher Thieme ¨C last week struck a deal with ResearchGate that allows academics to upload papers without having them pre-screened to comply with copyright.

This puts it at odds with another group of publishers, which includes Elsevier, that has taken a much more combative stance towards the Berlin-based academic social network and wants it to install such a filtering system.

The Springer Nature group and ResearchGate have agreed to ¡°cooperate in educating users about their rights in relation to copyright-protected content by providing users with more and better information about how and when they may share their journal articles on the network¡±, according to a?.

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ResearchGate ¡°will continue to promptly remove copyright-infringing content when alerted by publishers¡±, while the publishers ¡°will get better visibility into the usage of new content on the platform that was originally published in their journals¡±.

A ResearchGate??clarifying the deal stresses that it ¡°does not allow them [publishers] to pre-emptively block or filter research that scientists upload to the network¡±.

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¡°Hence, this solution will make reporting problematic content more straightforward for the publishers, while preserving academic freedom,¡±?it says. ¡°ResearchGate does not expect an extensive amount of content to be reported by participating publishers.¡±

The deal drew criticism from the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, a group of publishers including Elsevier and Wiley. James Milne, chair of the coalition, said in a??that ¡°no copyright-infringing content should go public on ResearchGate¡¯s site in the first place. The availability and subsequent removal of unauthorized content is unsustainable and disruptive to researchers who need a simple system that automatically provides clarity on how widely research can be shared.¡±

On 18 April, two members of the coalition, Elsevier and the American Chemical Society, announced that they had started legal action in Germany to ¡°clarify ResearchGate¡¯s responsibility for copyright infringements on its site¡±.

david.matthews@timeshighereducation.com