unless, of course, it plays a useful role. an ecosystem can thrive with both predator and prey - even with paratism. Point here, expressed more eloquently above

unless, of course, it plays a useful role. an ecosystem can thrive with both predator and prey - even with paratism. Point here, expressed more eloquently above, is that free and unrestricted knowledge can be a tremendously beneficial thing to society. You lock it up for good cause. Do Nature et al provide a useful service, the value of which is commensurate to the fees they charge? I'd argue that they don't: the fees they charge for access are because they have the best papers. One does not submit to Nature on strength of service, but on strength of the goodwill attached to the Nature brand, nurtured mostly through exclusivity. Besides some possible but implausible effect as an effective signal-to-noise filter (which I would argue it isn't, given that it is so exclusive, being largely faithful to a print format which has limited capacity), that's not a very good reason to prevent those with curiosity about the world - but who don't have $32 per article they want to read. Piracy of this sort, if it could be kept to those that would not otherwise purchase this article at any profitable price point for the journal, could actually be economically/education-optimal, perhaps? Also, the last time I checked, copyright had exceptions for academic use. Although I think these are usually limited to copying/reproduction, not the right of publication/distribution, I find these to be distinctions that just aren't warranted in the digital era.