The German Alliance of Science Organisations has ended negotiations with Elsevier, the biggest for-profit journal publisher, due to, “excessive demands.”  This follows Swedish universities breaking talks with the company over subscription costs.

The Europeans are standing up to the big for-profit publishers. The EU wants research to be open-access on publication by 2020 and deals in various nations along these lines are already done.

Of course, there is open access and open access – the publishers preferred model is pay to publish and free to read. But the OA argument in Europe is extending into a dispute over subscription costs.