[jacquesm]

Ostensibly you are not paying Elsevier to access the research, you are paying them because they obtained the right to copy the paper.

That's the loophole that many of the writers use to publish pre-prints from their own homepages. That did not stop the publishers from suing them:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/elsevier-versus-open-access

[sapper123]

Is the right to copy the paper an agreement between universities and the publisher? If so, can't the universities just give a middle finger to the publisher, cancel those rights and allow the research to be publicized for free, in the interest of furthering research, or is money that they get from the publisher that significant?

[Vinnl]

No, it's an agreement between researchers and the publishers, and the researchers feel dependent on the publisher for their careers (publishing in "high impact" journals is good for it), so they often blindly accept whichever terms the publisher shoves down their throats.

And no, no real money from the publisher is involved.

[marvy]

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'm pretty sure they get no money at all from the publishers. Other way around in fact: their libraries spend large fraction of budget subscribing to the journals.

[black_puppydog]

Plus a one-time fee for every paper they publish. Whith the option to pay more and make it open access. And then the library of the same university will still pay to access this article.