German Court Holds ResearchGate Liable For Illegal Content On Its Site

The popular academic social networking site ResearchGate is appealing a Jan. 31, 2022 ruling by a district court in Munich, Germany, which ruled that the site is responsible for scholarly papers infringing copyright that were uploaded to its website, Dalmeet Singh Chawla reported for Chemistry World.

Photo Insert: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, at left, is one of the investors who supported ResearchGate and its CEO, Ijad Madisch.

In 2017, publishing giant Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS) – both members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing (CRS) – sued ResearchGate alleging copyright infringement in 50 research papers uploaded to the site.

“We welcome the court’s decision confirming that it is illegal for ResearchGate to make content available on its site without permission from publishers, which it does for its own commercial gain,” James Milne, chair of the CRS and president of ACS Publications, said.

ResearchGate, which is based in Germany and has over 20 million users, declined to comment. In a statement released on Feb. 2, 2022, however, the firm said they had already removed the 50 papers in question and their associated material years ago.

For years, ResearchGate has insisted that publishers send takedown notices for content on its site that infringe copyright. In September 2021, for instance, the site removed around 200,000 files from its site following complaints from Elsevier and the ACS.

Milne, however, wrote in his statement that sending takedown notices is “highly disruptive” to the research community. He added in an email to Chemistry World: ‘ResearchGate is required to change its behavior and the structure of its site to comply with the verdict and to reduce the risk of being held liable for illicitly hosted content.’

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