Ross Mounce

Today, the author of a paid-for, 'hybrid' open access article published
in 2009, found that it was wrongly on sale at a Springer website:

https://twitter.com/zentree/status/592547039474421760

FWIW it's still freely available at the original publisher website
[here](http://www.afs-journal.org/articles/forest/full_html/2009/06/f08372/f08372.html).

To test if Springer really were just brazenly *selling* a copy of the
exact same open access article, I paid Springer to access a copy myself
(screenshot below) and found it was exactly the same:

[![my
receipt](http://rossmounce.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Springer-OA.png){.alignnone
.size-full .wp-image-1762 loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="599"
height="529"
srcset="https://rossmounce.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Springer-OA.png 599w, https://rossmounce.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Springer-OA-300x265.png 300w"
sizes="(max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px"}](http://rossmounce.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Springer-OA.png)

I don't actually care whether this is technically 'legal' any more. That
doesn't matter. **This is scammy publishing**. I want a refund and I
will be contacting Springer shortly to ask for this. The author also
hopes I get a refund -- he wanted his article be open access, not
available for a ransom:

https://twitter.com/zentree/status/592610842497024000

 

Frankly, I'm getting tired of writing these blog posts, but it needs to
be done to record what happened, because it *keeps on happening*.

I really think we need to setup a PaywallWatch.com c.f.
[RetractionWatch.com](http://retractionwatch.com/) to monitor and report
on these types of incidents. It's clear the publishers don't care about
this issue themselves -- they get extra money from readers by making
these 'mistakes' and no financial penalty if anyone does spot these
mistakes. Calculated indifference.

Are these known incidences just the tip of the iceberg? How do we know
this isn't happening at a greater scale, unobserved? There are more than
50 million research articles on sale at the moment. Perhaps in small
part this explains the [obscene
profits](http://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-scholarly-publishers/)
of the legacy publishers?

It's yet [another nail in the coffin for hybrid
OA](http://rossmounce.co.uk/2015/03/09/a-eulogy-for-hybrid-oa/) -- we
simply can't trust these publishers to keep this content open and
paywall-free.

**A recap of recent incidents of selling open access articles, without
the publisher acknowledging to the reader/buyer that it is an open
access article:**

Springer (April, 2015) this post

Wiley (March, 2015)
[link](http://rossmounce.co.uk/2015/03/26/wiley-are-charging-for-access-to-thousands-of-articles-that-should-be-free/)

Elsevier (March, 2015)
[link](http://rossmounce.co.uk/2015/03/06/elsevier-illegally-sold-me-a-creative-commons-non-commercial-licensed-article/)

Elsevier (2014)
[link](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/elsevier-bumps-on-road-to-open-access/2012238.article)


Today, the author of a paid-for, ‘hybrid’ open access article published in 2009, found that it was wrongly on sale at a Springer website:  https://twitter.com/zentree/status/592547039474421760  FWIW it’s still freely available at the original publisher website here.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Springer caught red-handed selling access to an Open Access article