Is there any history of companies that can easily move internationally being nationalised? Because it's not some national physical infrastructure like railways or electrical grids.

One interesting line would be to amend copyright laws (each country does this), such that all publicly funded research (government grants or accredited universities) no longer has any copyright applicable. Private companies and private research institutions would still have copyright protection if they really want it (most I've read don't, I think they'd patent rather than charge for access).

Then sites like SciHub can not be blocked and even better ones can be built (UX wise) that rely on donations for hosting etc without fear. It could start out in one country and expand as others catch up in legislation.

I wonder how the response would be though. But realistically, if the public was informed that individual institutions are paying millions for simply prestige where journal editors are unpaid yet they make billions in net profit annually, funded by their tution fees and taxpayer money, I think people wouldn't stand for this. Especially as we've gone all digital, these publishers are selling journal names.

I don't know the full history of asset forfeiture, but of the two portable franchises I can remember that were being threatened with seizure under eminent domain, both of them easily sidestepped it by ... moving.

The first was the Baltimore Colts. After 6 losing seasons and extremely questionable management by owner Jim Irsay, attendance plummeted. Irsay had been considering moving the franchise in a bid to try and get financing for a newer, better stadium, and in exchange Baltimore threatened eminent domain seizure, and easily passed the measure in the legislature. Colts moved to Indianapolis before the seizure could become effective and left (literally) overnight.

The other was also in Maryland. The Netflix show House of Cards, which is of course "set" in DC, filmed quite a bit in neighboring locales of Virginia and Maryland because of DC's size and weird shape. The show was trying to angle for more tax breaks for filming, and the state responded with threat of seizure. The show briefly quit filming in Maryland in lieu of VA and DC scenes before the measure died in the general assembly.

There was another, relating to the LA Raiders, but I know that the California Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the state's efforts (despite finding that providing sporting entertainment was a legitimate function of government) and that's about all I know of that one.

This is a root truth and problem with a lot of “just do X” - it assumes everyone else will keep doing whatever it is they’re doing when things change.

Unless you at some point are willing to force people to do something at the point of a gun or money hose, people can just choose to wander off and do something else instead.

We can live with Elsevier's "intellectual property" as of today being on sci-hub and such. Going forward however, the academia needs to rethink the concept of publications entirely. The situation where the author pays to be published, for the publisher to arrange unpaid peer review (by people the author specified) is ridiculous, stopped scaling a while ago and benefits nobody.

The publisher could almost be replaced by a torrent tracker with some PKI for peer review. Then a researcher could create his own slice of knowledge by choosing works endorsed by keys he trusts/considers relevant to his area of research.

Nationalization would be a rather drastic step, and may be counterproductive. It would require considerable political capital. There are myriad other options.

We should begin with a broad understanding about the symptoms with the current dynamic as they impact various audiences. From there, we can work towards causes. After that, potential solutions can be weighed in terms of effectiveness, cost, and feasibility.

What do you think are the top 10 or 20 symptoms? From there, what are the 5 to 10 underlying causes? From that, what solutions are worth promoting?