RE: Merck published fake journal

["David Prosser" <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>]

Phil

The irony is clear - while the Chief executive was bad mouthing open access
and speaking of potential abuses his own organisation was engaged in
practices that are being universally condemned as falling below commonly
accepted standards of objectivity and probity

David

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Phil Davis
Sent: 12 May 2009 01:16
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Merck published fake journal

David,

There is no irony here.  These were *not* subscription journals.
They were the result of a *producer-pays model* for the purposes
of giving *free copies* to doctors in hope that Merck could
influence their practice and prescribe more Merck drugs.
Elsevier exploited the fact that doctors prefer getting their
medical information for free and would welcome free literature.
I can't seem to find any evidence that any library (or any
reader) paid a subscription for these journals (if you do, please
provide it).

If there is any similarity to be made to the subscription model,
it would be the long-term practice of Emerald reprinting
previously published articles without disclosing that they were
previously published.  Emerald sold these articles in
subscription journals.

--Phil Davis