Authors&#x2F;Scientist have little problem with getting their work into out there to as many people
as possible.  People want the knowledge.  So the only ones really objecting to this are the publishers.<p>As someone who works at the edge of biology, I have noted that the publishing business reviews the papers get knowledgeable peer-reviewers(pressed for time) and then ask difficult questions of the authors.  Some papers aren&#x27;t good enough, they get rejected.  This culling has some value, much as it irritates the scientists.
Scientists are always trying to get their work published&#x2F;sited and ranking journals is something that happens with some regularity  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.citefactor.org&#x2F;journal-impact-factor-list-2014_0-A.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.citefactor.org&#x2F;journal-impact-factor-list-2014_0-...</a><p>Of course, want to download an article on the first genome assembly of drosophila from 15 years ago... $30. (I can access articles like this though my work in academia, if I go though the library and cross my fingers the moon is in the right phase, the the pdf link might show up).<p>Holding knowledge and parsing it out for profits is somewhat suspect.<p>Note that anything US government NIH funded since 2005 is required to have access. 
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;about&#x2F;public-access&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pmc&#x2F;about&#x2F;public-access&#x2F;</a><p>for example. This paper, published by a coworker in an official &quot;journal&quot; but still available for free via pubmed.
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;23443684" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;pubmed&#x2F;23443684</a><p>I get the &quot;joy&quot; of uploading lots of data from screens to the us goverment pubchem website.  I&#x27;m not sure anyone downloads it, but its there.  They have an interesting embargo system which holds the data till publication (I&#x27;ve never used that, some people really care about that stuff)<p>Researchers in academia also pass around papers. The peer reviewers do to, if they find something interesting.  We&#x27;ve gotten requests for data from unpublished papers.