What about poor countries who can't afford to pay for many subscriptions in the field? Should their scientists be banned from making contributions to science?

Spain is not very poor, but when I was doing research in Seville, the department simply could not afford subscriptions to most physics journals, so we had to write directly to the authors with mixed success.

How do you think a scientist in Senegal would feel about spending $6,000 [0] for access to a single journal for 5 researchers.

If the per-capita GNI is $1,000 [1], the equivalent in the US would be for your university to pay $330,000 for 5 people in your department to read _a single_ journal!!

[0] http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?issn=03784371 [1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD/countries...