> But people are free to not publish things or post things online with a more restrictive license. Not that a license stops things from being indexed. Right. I

> But people are free to not publish things or post things online with a more restrictive license. Not that a license stops things from being indexed. Right. In fact, people are also free to publish things with licenses that condition access on compensating the author/publisher, and they have both social and legal backing to enforce it. This is called "proprietary", and it's not a wrong choice - in fact outside of software, it's the default choice. The problem is when people publish "free" and "open" as a marketing tactic, where in fact they really want to control and charge for access (whether dollars or karma or credit). That is just plain dishonesty.