This case is unlike movie or music distribution in there has been convenient online distribution of papers since arguably the dawn of the internet (ok, maybe "convenient" came later).
The difference is, the journal publisher groups realised they can continue charging extortionary prices and get rid of the competition of "free" paper websites by suing everything that moved.
Academics, generally getting slightly-less-than-free copies of the papers at their institutions and generally being apathetic about their universities being extorted, created a gulf and precluded any kind of pirate culture.
But publishers have since become emboldened, prices have risen, the inequality access has been increasingly advocated for and brought to light, and the open access journals had a bit of momentum for moment.
Honestly, if you ask me, the solution here is pretty simple (at least in some fields). Negotiate (if it's not already granted) the permission to publish manuscripts and pre-prints. Submit them to ArXiV or Bio/MedRxiv, or whatever repository.
This doesn't tackle the issue of academics paying publishers to send emails to other academics who in turn work for free to review papers, but one battle at a time.
Also when I was in academia (masters). If my university didn't subscribe to a journal (and it wasn't available via an inter-library loan (In the UK you can ask for a journal from another university)). I would just shoot an email to the author asking for a copy
Edit: Actually I usually sent emails even when we did have a hard copy but no online access. Just because I couldn't be bothered to find the physical copy
I think an appropriate solution is getting the prestigious reviewers of top journals to quit and move to open access model funded by the government. The difficult step is convincing the bureacracy at different levels (universities, govt) and of course preventing lobbying.
The difference is, the journal publisher groups realised they can continue charging extortionary prices and get rid of the competition of "free" paper websites by suing everything that moved.
Academics, generally getting slightly-less-than-free copies of the papers at their institutions and generally being apathetic about their universities being extorted, created a gulf and precluded any kind of pirate culture.
But publishers have since become emboldened, prices have risen, the inequality access has been increasingly advocated for and brought to light, and the open access journals had a bit of momentum for moment.
Honestly, if you ask me, the solution here is pretty simple (at least in some fields). Negotiate (if it's not already granted) the permission to publish manuscripts and pre-prints. Submit them to ArXiV or Bio/MedRxiv, or whatever repository.
This doesn't tackle the issue of academics paying publishers to send emails to other academics who in turn work for free to review papers, but one battle at a time.
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