 What does removing permission barriers mean for readers?
Copyright can also be a significant access barrier. If you have access to a work for reading but want to translate it into another language, distribute copies to colleagues, copy the text for mining with sophisticated software, or reformat it for reading with new technology, then you generally need the permission of the copyright holder. As a result, users may be hampered in their research by barriers erected to serve intermediaries rather than authors. In addition, replacing user freedom with permission-seeking harms research authors by limiting the usefulness of their work, harms research readers by limiting the uses they may make of works even when they have access, and thereby harms research from both directions. Removing price barriers means that readers are not limited by their own ability to pay, or by the budgets of the institutions where they may have library privileges. Removing permission barriers means that scholars are free to use or reuse literature for scholarly purposes. But at the same time, all three allow at least one limit on user freedom: an obligation to attribute the work to the author. This is complicated because the major obstacles are not technical, legal, or economic, but cultural. This peculiar custom does more than insulate cutting-edge research from the market and free scholars to consent to OA without losing revenue. It frees researchers to challenge conventional wisdom and defend unpopular ideas, which are essential to academic freedom. But it removes a major distraction by allowing them, if they wish, to focus on what is likely to be true rather than what is likely to sell.
 Readers can reuse literature for scholarly purposes.
 Readers can reuse literature for scholarly purposes.  Readers can translate and redistribute work.  Readers are not limited by their own ability to pay.  Readers are not limited by the budgets of libraries.