Years ago when I was going to school there seemed to be an 'urban legend' (perhaps scholastic legend would be a better term.) that scientific articles couldn't be copyrighted, because according to the legend, researchers had to have access to the article in order to see if they could duplicate the findings. All very noble, and all very wrong. I found journal after journal where they would write the innocent but deadly phrase "For the purposes of licensing articles the author assigns all copyrights to the journal." As the article noted they couldn't even quote their own work without obtaining permission first!

Like I said on another string I went to Google scholar to find out how many Covid articles were still locked behind paywalls I found zero! It's sort of the reverse of the old wheeze about locking the barn after the horse escaped. This time it's like unlocking the barn after it burned down along with all the horses, livestock, equipment, your house the fields, the surrounding countryside etc.

What were two of the seven deadly sins? Oh yeah greed. Along with gluttony.