University publishers have consolidated in an anti-trust manner to virtual monopolies, and so charge zillions for books that should be $20 instead of $200. Universities have become massive cash-extraction businesses swimming in coin, spending 10-100M's USD each on buildings in short order, while trying to keep up the pretense of academic purity.

And then there are the journals that are so expensive that high school and college students and people in developing countries who cannot afford to get past their paywalls. This reinforces both an economic and a scientific elitism.

University researchers/teachers who publish books or articles through them often get paid nothing (zero), or very little. And they do not care, since their goal is get publications in prestigious venues, which helps them in their academic career.

My point is that this stuff should be free, open access, published at low cost through university presses etc. So pirating academic books is basically fine.

That should be up to the author, no? If they decide to not make it open source and take a tiny profit, that's their decision since it's their work.