[IP-OA_Forum] Sale of the Amsterdam University Press (AUP) film, media and communication list to Taylor & Francis – Resignation of series editors and editorial board members | Open Media Studies Blog

[Tobias Steiner <info@flavoursofopen.science>]

sharing this as it seems relevant - academics taking a stand against the commercialization of scholarly publishing. via Open Media Studies blog https://mediastudies.hypotheses.org/6850

It is with great dismay that we, the undersigned, learned that the film, media and communication list of Amsterdam University Press (AUP) has been taken over by Taylor & Francis, a subsidiary of Informa LTD. We as series editors were notified of this transaction per e-mail on Friday, June 6, 2025.

AUP had ceased to operate as a university press in 2019 when the press became the property of a private individual. However, for the last six years AUP continued to operate like a university press, i.e. a publishing venture committed to fostering research and exchange in a global scholarly community rather than motivated by profit.

With the takeover by Taylor & Francis we are now supposed to work for a for-profit academic publishing conglomerate, Informa LTD.

Informa LTD is registered in Jersey, a tax haven. As per the company’s annual report last year Informa posted a profit of GBP 995 million on GBP 3.535 million of revenue. The profit margin is 28%. Taylor & Francis, Informa’s subsidiary to which AUP’s film, media and communication list has been transferred, posted a profit of GBP 255 million on GBP 698 million of revenue. The profit margin is 36%.

The profit of Taylor & Francis is rent extracted from taxpayer funded research. In addition to the uncompensated work of authors and series editors, much of that profit is made through the collection of fees, in particular open access fees, which also come out of taxpayer-funded university or research budgets.

Neither the taxpayers as the original investors nor the researchers who created the intellectual property that made Informa LTD’s rent-extraction possible participate in the company’s profits. Royalties on academic publications are notoriously negligible.

None of the authors or series editors, who have been creating value for AUP through unpaid labor, were consulted about the deal between AUP and Informa LTD. The expertise necessary to create the book lists sold to Informa LTD is obviously considered to be without value. This lack of valuation also comes as a surprise to our employers, in particular the universities which have supported the creation of the AUP film, media and communication list by allowing us to contribute our time and labor without remuneration.

We resign herewith from our positions as editors and editorial board members for the book series listed here below.

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Tobias Steiner, MA

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3158-3136
Web: https://flavoursofopen.science

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Tobias Steiner, MA

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3158-3136
Web: https://flavoursofopen.science