This is a bit OT, but it reminds me of the much under-reported aspect of Aaron Schwartz's document collecting: As I understand it, he intended to analyze the r

This is a bit OT, but it reminds me of the much under-reported aspect of Aaron Schwartz's document collecting: As I understand it, he intended to analyze the resulting data set for patterns. Meta-analysis of said scientific literature, so to speak. Of value in itself, for several reasons. Scientific. Personal interest -- interesting language and rhetoric. One very important one -- that can be lumped under the important work of science as well as that of understanding human endeavor in all its aspects: Fraud detection. We all have been reading about both mistakes and deliberate mis-representation in scientific publications. Including in some very influential works, subsequently retracted. ArXiv is a step in the right direction. When we have all these scientific results locked up to the point where such meta-analysis and subsequent science is impossible, we've greatly shackled the process of scientific research and our own human endeavor and progress. By the way, with respect to recent public conversation with respect to economics, some view this as another form of rent-seeking. People who don't produce but rather gather the "rights" to the results of production, and then divert as much as they can of its value into their own pockets -- often diverting it away from investment in the actual work from whence it comes. Or, eating your seed corn.