Soon, nobody will read academic journals illegally, because the studies worth reading will be free; Quartz, August 9, 2017

Akshat Rathi, Quartz; Soon, nobody will read academic journals illegally, because the studies worth reading will be free

"Now a new study has found that nearly half of all academic articles that users want to read are already freely available. These studies may or may not have been published in an open-access journal, but there is a legally free version available for a reader to download...

The finding is backed by two trends. First, academics are increasingly publishing in open-access journals. Looking at a random sample of studies published in 2015, about 45% were published in such journals. Second, studies published in open-access journals receive more citations than average. It’s not clear whether that’s to do with the quality of research or easy access, but it’s a positive sign for a more open-accessed internet."