For \u00a325 you can buy a pdf copy of my 2005 article \u201cPlacing Quebec nationalisms: constructing English identities in Quebec\u2019s Eastern Townships,\u201d which was published in the British Journal of Canadian Studies<\/em>. The article is just 16 pages long, but costs more than most 200 page books. I have no idea how many people have actually paid \u00a325 for my article, as I do not receive royalties and I did not receive a one-off fee. The University of Southampton was not paid for my contribution and neither were the two peer reviewers. The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) which funded the research on which this work was based (with money from the UK taxpayer) won\u2019t get any of that money either.<\/p>\n

This is well known within academia, but those outside academia are mostly surprised to learn that neither we, nor our employers receive any payment for our work. This youtube video produced for open access week<\/a>\u00a0shows a conversation between a researcher who has been asked to assign copyright to the journal publisher and the publisher himself. (In practice these conversation do not happen\u2014we just sign the form and stick it in the post).<\/p>\n