There are several ways copyright and patent laws are outdated, though most aren't directly relevant to this discussion. Scientific journals are an especially i

There are several ways copyright and patent laws are outdated, though most aren't directly relevant to this discussion. Scientific journals are an especially interesting case. They way copyright law applies to scientific journals is certainly broken, but I think it has been broken for a long time. Afaik, in most cases scientists are not paied royalties for the papers they publish in journals, and in some cases even have to pay for the privilege of submitting a paper. Peer reviewers also aren't paid for their time reviewing papers. Yet publishers charge very steep rates for access to the journals. Essentially all the publisher does is, well publish the papers, and select which papers they think are important enough to include in the journal. Technology changes the landscape in three ways. First, digital publishing is significantly cheaper and more efficient than publishing hard copy journals, so in a competitive market you would expect the price for journals to go down. Second, in digital publishing, there is less need to limit the number of published papers in an issue to a set number, which again should reduce cost. Finally, it makes it much easier for "pirates" to distribute copies of journals without restrictive paywalls. I would also be very surprised if many of the scientists whose papers were "pirated" would complain that their papers are easier to access by other scientists. I mean, the more scientists that have access to the papers, the more likely the paper is to be read and cited. And most scientists will care much more about that, than how much money the journal is making off of it. The only people that benefit from high pawalls for access to scientific papers, is the publisher.