zlacker

>>sixtyf+(OP)
I've heard multiple times, and I don't remember exactly from where, that you can access research papers for free simply by reaching out to the authors and that many if not most of them are willing to provide said papers upon request.

If that is the case, why exactly don't researchers stick their papers literally anywhere on the internet that isn't a paywall? Is there a legal difference between sharing a paper with an individual and uploading it to a public index?

Honestly, with the current psychology of the public, I don't think this would be worse than having journals pick holding research for ransom.

>>ravens+RS
Because the rules allow us to send out copies of the final article in "personal correspondence with other researchers" but limit upload to preprint servers (arxiv) and institutional repositories (our own website) to the last version that we submitted, without the services of the journal, i.e. before language editing and layouting.