Publishing Privateers?

" We put a huge amount of effort into research that is partly funded from public money, substantially supported by our own time. We write peer reviews for journals, sit on editorial boards and edit special editions of journals, making the results of research widely available. When we come to publish ourselves, we often surrender our copyright in full, including our right ever to reprint or distribute our papers. But then our university libraries have to pay substantial subscriptions (that increase annually at rates significantly above general inflation) so that our colleagues and students can read our work. And, in a final turn of the screw, we are invited to pay a large amount of money so that we can send our own papers to our colleagues and collaborators without risk of prosecution (I was recently offered a special price of $3000 for this privilege). Dividends from publishing companies are paid to private investors. Many people would agree that George Monbiot has a point. What is less well known is that, irrespective of the contract for final publication, it is quite legal to make the final draft of a publication available to anyone in an open access repository. This is not an ideal way to go; such versions will not have the correct pagination, illustrations and figures may not be as published and there will often be minor editorial changes made to the published version...."