Academic papers are hidden from the public. Here's some direct action.

The shame of modern science is that what might work is so simple to build, because it is already built. Research papers already form a web: They all have references to prior research papers, which in turn have references of their own. Moreover, the community of researchers and their students would quickly and happily turn all those links into clickable ones -- if only paywalls didn't prevent them. [1]

It's no coincidence that even the simplest of web pages is already perfectly suited for scientific research: Tim Berners-Lee built HTML and HTTP for that purpose. But now science lags behind, say, LOLcats or the Twilight books when it comes to online discussion, and I assert that it's not merely because science is esoteric [2]: It's because scientific publishing is suffocated by rent-seekers.

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[1] Actually, my understanding is that cross-journal hyperlinks are slowly evolving within academia: Once you're inside the university library's firewall you can make actual working hyperlinks that are only, say, 65% less efficient than the average Wikipedia link. This is great for those who are currently inside the ivory tower. Not so great for me and the other 99.9% of humanity.

[2] What I wonder is the extent to which science remains esoteric because it has always required so much training and money to read the literature that the literature has never needed to evolve actual readability. Why bother learning to explain your work to a popular audience when your writing will only ever appear in journals that are only visible to your colleagues?

Historically, we've relied on great science journalism to make up the difference. (Gods bless you, Isaac Asimov.) But great science journalism, like all journalism, is rare and getting rarer.

Well if you click on the "about" link on lectureleaks.com, you'll see that they only talk about copyrights. They do not seem to care about anything else... Incidentally, they have quite a lengthy copyright and license notice themselves... Maybe I should write one for my course.

"Are there any known instances of a lecture recording being used against an instructor unfairly?"

If you asked me whether instructors were sometimes treated unfairly by students, administrators or politicians, I would say yes. Having access to recorded lectures just adds a new angle of attack.

"I doubt doing things that could be construed as "out of line, incorrect, inappropriate, whatever" really improve your lectures in a significant and sustainable way."

I was actually referring to some ill intentioned people who would turn a joke, a simple mistake you made, or a controversial topic you taught against you. For example, teaching evolution is a risky business in some US states.

The point though is then it's not the same teaching--- if I'm recording something For Official Broadcast, it's a different kind of thing than if I'm having an informal seminar with 20 people in a room where we all (at least sort of) know each other. I'll be more formal and less chatty, students will be less free with their discussion too, etc.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a more formal, archival-intended lecture from the podium, like a keynote speech or a big auditorium lecture. But I don't think it should be the only kind of thing to exist, either. I think it should be possible for people to discuss and learn in smaller groups without anyone (teachers or students) worrying that every single thing they say is on-camera, 1984-style. I mean, apart from me; do my students want every single question they ask in class, some smarter-sounding than others, to end up on the internet?

I do support making the materials more widely (and ideally, freely) available--- course notes, slides, papers, tutorials, textbooks, etc. It's just actually recording people against their will in a setting where they should be able to feel free to discuss & ask questions that has the weird 1984-ish vibe.

I think it might be people with genuine idealism about the virtues of openness trying to find a way to go in that direction and hoping to yoke the sense of entitlement other people have in order that it will do some rhetorical work for them. If you find the one distasteful, then those seeking to use it as a tool might lose some respect for doing so.

Personally I think the important issue for more openness isn't finding such rhetoric to motivate it. It is finding and promoting solutions to the review process and filtering/ranking-by-quality of papers in more fields. If the best minds in a field don't have any other incentive toward contributing to that process than the journal system, then I still need to go through the maw of the journals (or tell the library I use to do so) when I need to learn about the field using the benefit of the understanding in those minds.