The access principle

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Similarly, an interesting review of a book critical of the status-quo in academia (The Access Principle, by John Willinsky): http://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/journal.html It seems that journals (and textbook publishers) give the authors of intellectual works prestige and bragging rights in return for billions of dollars worth of intellectual property. The more valuable the intellectual property you give up, the more bragging rights you get. The entire industry reminds me of Tom Sawyer's whitewashing trick: Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/learnmore/writings_tom.html Or is there somethin…