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The quote from the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (not the UN charter http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/, odd mistake by the nytimes) is also misleading.

The very next sentence says

>(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.



Note that the authors do not get materials benefit when journals sell their articles. If anything that sentence means that authors can claim back the profits made by publishers.


Authors sign over their copyrights to the journals. Are you suggesting copyright should not be transferable (people should not be permitted to transact freely)?

Authors do benefit by being able to publish for much less than it would cost were they to bear all the costs. To be precise, they benefit by the cost of open access that offers comparable service.




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