zlacker

>>sixtyf+(OP)
The main issue is that currently there's no way around publishing at the established journals and conferences, because of the reputation they've built up. Funding and career advancement hinge on publications in these venues. If we accept that publishers don't offer much at all in return for the publication fees/library subscription costs (barely any editing, reviewers work pro bono, hosting PDFs is very cheap nowadays), the main issue is one of "reputation transfer".

One way to cut out the middle man would be to convince journal editors to run sibling journals alongside the existing journals, so for each "Transactions on XYZ" there would be an "Open Transactions on XYZ" (as close in title as is legal). Importantly, each sibling journal would be run by the exact same academics (who are doing the real work on tax money anyway), and according to the same process as the original journal, just without involvement from a traditional publisher. PDFs would be hosted on a site like arXiv. The goal would be that submitting to the open "sibling" would be the obvious rational choice (same people, same decision-making, no fees, open access), which in time even the funding agencies and tenure committees would have to acknowledge.

>>frankl+vk
Sure there is a way around it.

You publish in an established venue, but also put the paper on a public website. This is possible legally using the "standard trick": https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/119002/7319

... and is in relatively wide practice.

>>einpok+Wn
You often don’t need any trick. Major publishers nowadays allow you to put something nearly identical to the published paper online.

See for example https://www.elsevier.com/authors/submit-your-paper/sharing-a...:

You can always post your preprint on a preprint server. Additionally, for ArXiv and RePEC you can also immediately update this version with your accepted manuscript. Please note that Cell Press, The Lancet, and some society-owned titles have different preprint policies. Information on these is available on the journal homepage.

[…]

You can post your accepted author manuscript immediately to an institutional repository and make this publicly available after an embargo period has expired. Remember that for gold open access articles, you can post your published journal article and immediately make it publicly available.”

>>Someon+pH
Well, that partial change is the result of people just posting their papers and ignoring more draconian previous copyright transfers. Still, not remotely sufficient. The point is that with this text, you only have the specific rights defined by Elsevier, and those are kind of limited. It's not at all clear what rights people who copy the paper have.

So, for example:

* There's an "embargo period" during which you're censored, you need to shut up, can't post your article. Preposterous.

* In many venues, you need to use custom links to Elsevier's "Science blocked and obfuscated". I mean "ScienceDirect"... yeah, right...

* You seem not to have rights to post new versions, or other derivative works.

* Stuff I haven't thought of because I'm not an IP lawyer.