Elsevier—the science and medical segment of publisher Reed Elsevier—has dramatically increased its copyright enforcement efforts against universities and academic websites, demanding that they remove thousands of scholarly works from their websites. Over the last several weeks, Elsevier has sent takedown notices to Harvard University, the University of Calgary, the University of California-Irvine and media network Academia.edu, according to the Washington Post. The Post reports that Elsevier’s ownership of the copyrights in question is not in dispute—scholars usually sign away their copyrights as a condition for Reed Elsevier to publish their work. However, it has been industry practice for journal publishers to overlook instances where academic institutions post work from their own scholars. Those days seem to be over. “In the past, we really got one or two takedowns a week,” said Academia.edu chief executive officer Richard Price to the Washington Post. “Only very recently did Elsevier start…