Academic publishing is in crisis. In the past, university researchers have been dependent on publishers to print and distribute their work in the form of books and scholarly journals. Now that they realise they can use the Internet, it's time to change . Here are the arguments.
Academics are under pressure to publish.
If they produce articles, books, and research papers which are assessed by their peers, this helps them to promote their careers - and we may or may not be wiser for what they write. All this is done at the expense of taxpayers, who foot the bill for their salaries whilst they spend time writing. Academic publishers take their works and turn them into marketable products. Well, very few people actually. Mainly research libraries - also funded by taxpayers' money.