I'm curious (playing devil's advocate):
Does this mean that MIT can now do research and not be required to publish this anywhere, not even journals?
And, if somebody from MIT does publish something under this framework, can they claim copyright and disallow any use of the contents of the papers if so convenient? Move away from patents and straight into copyright. We all know how well the US copyright system works, right?
I mean, doesn't Elsevier guarantee that the paper will be 'free-from-copyright' of the original institution/country, to any other research institution part of their network. Like, share the knowledge to those connected.
Do these moves away from Elsevier mean a more open-access, or a more-copyrighted-access to papers? I see no commitment for MIT to relinquish copyright, nor any commitment to make everything open access.
I don't really get your questions. Elsevier was never the one who demanded that MIT published research, so this shouldn't change anything there.
When a researcher publishes with Elsevier, the common practice when not transferring copyright is to give them a perpetual licence to publish the work.
Additionally, presumably MIT requires their researchers to publish their work as Open Access, i.e. with a licence that allows re-use and distribution for everyone - so they cannot disallow use of the contents of the papers arbitrarily. Elsevier is not needed for that.
> Does this mean that MIT can now do research and not be required to publish this anywhere, not even journals?
They were never required. Scientists do research and share their results so they can be improved and combined and provide insight. It started out with private letters between scientists in the early days, then journals appeared that would distribute the incoming letters to other interested parties. Over time it became a formalized system with metrics, incentives, publish or perish etc. But the original goal was to share and announce your results.
Pretty much every research grant that feeds university researchers (as opposed to industry researchers) will require that the results of the research must be published; often with some more specific criteria - e.g. a peer-reviewed journal with an impact rating in the top quartile, not just on your webpage.
And, if somebody from MIT does publish something under this framework, can they claim copyright and disallow any use of the contents of the papers if so convenient? Move away from patents and straight into copyright. We all know how well the US copyright system works, right?
I mean, doesn't Elsevier guarantee that the paper will be 'free-from-copyright' of the original institution/country, to any other research institution part of their network. Like, share the knowledge to those connected.
Do these moves away from Elsevier mean a more open-access, or a more-copyrighted-access to papers? I see no commitment for MIT to relinquish copyright, nor any commitment to make everything open access.