I don’t quite see the issue here. Elsevier’s terms of service for subscriptions very likely explicitly ban bulk downloading. As such, they have every right to expect subscribers not to bulk download and further every right to ban specific subscribers (i.e. university libraries) if they violate those ToS. Nothing new, nothing exciting.
If you want to be able to freely access and bulk download the papers published by your peers, maybe you should make sure that those peers publish in journals that allow such downloads. Maybe you yourself should also only publish in journals that allow these downloads. Possibly, you could even run your own preprint server where everyone can submit their texts and which then can be made available in bulk to interested parties.
Breaking contracts you (or a person acting on your behalf) agreed to doesn’t help at all in the long run – boycotting those who only offer contracts you don’t like until they either change or go away is a much more viable, ethically acceptable and generally more enjoyable alternative.
And hey, if your method to detect fraud is successful, market pressure alone might be enough: after all, who wants to submit to a shady journal which doesn’t have its articles automatically checked for large-scale fraud regularly? Surely, only fraudsters…
If you want to be able to freely access and bulk download the papers published by your peers, maybe you should make sure that those peers publish in journals that allow such downloads. Maybe you yourself should also only publish in journals that allow these downloads. Possibly, you could even run your own preprint server where everyone can submit their texts and which then can be made available in bulk to interested parties.
Breaking contracts you (or a person acting on your behalf) agreed to doesn’t help at all in the long run – boycotting those who only offer contracts you don’t like until they either change or go away is a much more viable, ethically acceptable and generally more enjoyable alternative.
And hey, if your method to detect fraud is successful, market pressure alone might be enough: after all, who wants to submit to a shady journal which doesn’t have its articles automatically checked for large-scale fraud regularly? Surely, only fraudsters…