availability of research papers

[darkoshi]

Several times now, when I've been searching for scientific information, I've come across research papers with relevant/interesting sounding abstracts. In many cases, the sites hosting the papers have restricted access to the full text of the papers - one needs an account to view them. In order to get an account, one must be a member of a medical or educational institution, etc. In some cases, the sites in question also offer the ability for other people to buy/download the full paper, for a fee. If the fee were small (under $5), I'd consider it. But the fees I've seen so far are more in the range of $30.

So I end up doing a web search on the paper's title, to see if I can find it elsewhere. On more than one occasion, I've found the full paper freely available on Google Docs.

So I wonder:
1. Why do sites have fees / restrictions for viewing the papers in the first place? Who gets the money - is it used for site maintenance costs, or for what? Do the authors of the papers get any of the money?
2. Why does Google Docs have the papers freely available, when they aren't freely available elsewhere? Are these documents on Google Docs by mistake, or on purpose?

Comments

[andrewducker]

The companies that publish the research papers make money from licensing them to universities, etc. and selling copies of individual ones.

The copies on Google Docs are frequently illegal.

[darkoshi]

> The copies on Google Docs are frequently illegal.

I somehow thought that Google would be invested in preventing material from getting on their platform, when it shouldn't be there. ... Oh. I didn't realize that Google Docs contained user-uploaded content. I was getting it mixed up with Google Books.


Do the companies that publish the papers also fund the studies that the papers are based on? Or do they pay the authors in exchange for the exclusive right to publish the material?

Or if not, how/why do these companies end up with the papers, rather than say, the authors publishing them on a non-restricted website?

[andrewducker]

It dates back to The Dark Ages, before the internet, when publishing was all through these companies, because they're publishers.

Nowadays, academics are still rated based on what publications they have made, and where they were published. Sticking up your publications on your website doesn't count for anything.

[darkoshi]

Ah, I see. Getting published by those well-known organizations lends one more credibility, as presumably the organizations put the papers through some kind of review process before accepting them. That makes sense.