zlacker

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+(OP)
That's not a way around publishing at the established venues, it's done in addition to it. Everyone still submits to the established journals and conferences because this is what is being evaluated for career advancement and funding.

>>frankl+G
Is not the chief practical problem that access to knowledge gets barred in a pay-to-read system. The trick is one patch against that chief practical issue, which can be for these purposes separated by the systemic issue.

>>mdp202+W4
I agree: it helps a lot with the practical issue of access to knowledge. But from a taxpayer's or academic's perspective it wouldn't hurt to also eliminate the exorbitant publishing/licensing fees.

>>einpok+(OP)
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+tj
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.