[spellbanisher]

i don't think anyone but the author's guild is arguing for restricting access. Every professor I know would love their work to be made freely available online, but there is a difference between academic journals and books that are funded primarily by taxpayer dollars (with the exception of professors working for private universities) and works that are created for primarily commercial purposes. No professor writes to get rich, and in fact even though every tenured professor is well-published almost all of them make no money from their books. Novelists and other professional writers, however, are a part of a for-profit industry. I actually think more professors should explore digital and online publishing, because its clear that since college education is seen as a necessity publishers exploit the inelasticity of textbooks to gouge students.