One of my mentors at uni (who has a bunch of published articles), for example, told me he completely condones using it. He told me he gets nothing from them in terms of money despite their being behind fat paywalls.
Er, by articles I mean these... scientific articles. I'm not sure what they are called in English. Research papers?
Yep.
My uni has access to a couple research paper databases, however, and is subscribed to many scientific journals, or whatever they're called.
Even textbooks don't pay that much. I suppose it depends, but our uni professors often tell us to find their used or second-hand books, instead of buying new ones. And the books they talk about weren't published more than like 5 years ago. One of them told us that from a single purchase of a 400 HRK (~around 65 USD) book they get "less than 2 HRK, but more than 0", heh.
I should first point out that the title is more to capture a common occurrence of the broader idea I want to address in this question. It is also somewhat incorrect in that—at least in the US—I'm not sure it's actually illegal to download music without paying (per se), but rather to share it. But...
On a website collecting aphorisms, we find:
In Deutschland ist alles verboten, was nicht erlaubt ist;
in England ist alles erlaubt, was nicht verboten ist;
in Rußland ist alles erlaubt, was verboten ist.
Rudolf von Jhering ––
(1818 - 1892), deutscher Rechtswissenschaftler, erster V...