[kasbah]

Firstly, copying isn't the same as taking.

More importantly most of the scientists want their research to be read and studied as widely as possible but have their careers to worry about. The journal system is being widely criticised but academics are not in the best position to take action against it.

The dissemination of knowledge, with it's potential for reducing inequality and increasing social mobility, is much more important than the profitability of journal publishers and outweighs the risk of hurt feelings due to a sense of ownership of knowledge (which seems like a fallacy in itself) that anyone involved could possibly have.

[lambdaelite]

So why not email the corresponding author? I have yet to not get (or give) a manuscript that way. From my own perspective, each time I respond I'm possibly getting another citation. It's also a great form of networking.

[Riesling]

When I do research I go through a lot of papers, many of them are discarded after the first couple of sentences. It would slow me down a lot, when I had to contact all of the authors in the first place.

How useful would google really be, if you had to contact every author before reading the actual website?

[germanier]

What's the practical difference between getting any paper you need from the authors and getting any paper you need from such a website? Except much more work for anyone in the former case without any benefit.

[lambdaelite]

Practically speaking, none I can think of. But I completely disagree that the networking aspect has no benefit.

[kasbah]

Because it currently wouldn't be possible to make a site of this scale with that method.