[thr0waway1239]

One way or the other, to the extent that there will be a cost associated, it is going to be borne by taxpayers in open access (in fact, the taxpayers in the richest countries will probably subsidize the research of the poorer ones during collaboration).

But your point is very true - at some point we need the top publishers to be thrown out of business and for new ones to emerge AND the new publishers need to maintain costs which reflect true costs rather than the current 'what can we get away with?' prices they charge. Strangely, competition will be really good for this situation but it will not be so great for the researchers. (It would be like determining the quality of a webpage when no website has a PageRank higher than 3). Isn't that why there is so much hair pulling over this issue amongst researchers?

Isn't this ruling going to at least help a little in the sense that the researches now have a legal reason to push back on publishers who charge the exorbitant rates, plus as the sibling comment says, introduces a bit more transparency into the process?

I am interested in getting your thoughts on how to kickstart more competition amongst publishers.