There are several issues to that.

(1) In fact, in Germany it is possible to receive some payment for publications, through something that is called "VG Wort". They go around all the publishers and collect royalties. You may sign up with them and get your share from the number of papers you published; the cost of a journal enters, the number of subscriptions, the number of total papers, etc. I don't know any German scientist who is really signed up with VG Wort and collects royalties. A friend of mine 20 years ago did this and got a couple bucks for a couple papers. If everybody does that, the cake is divided up to feed more mouths, and hence any royalty will be down to a few cents only.

(2) As long as we as researchers get decent pay (e.g., from governmental funding agencies, our universities, etc.) I think we should not get paid for publications. Some university managers will be happy about your idea, and one might even propose to cut you base salary by, say, 200$ per month, and introduce a bonus system where you get, say, 50$ more each month for each paper you have published in the past year. So if you publish more than 4 papers per year, you will be better off, otherwise you will have less. If you like that: There are universities that established such a bonus system. I think that this is not helpful because the number of publications is fluctuating and it increases the general "publish-or-perish" mentality. Researchers will be, e.g., less interested in R&D for new equipment in their field, and the number of publication varies strongly with your field of research.

(3) I think the fact that some publishers are making big money from our work (and we pay the subscriptions, as well) will ultimately lead to a change in publication policy, towards "open source" or at least non-profit publishers (e.g., in physics: American Physical Society, Insitute of Physics, ...). In order to get there, our funding sources (universities, govt. agencies, industry...) need to be convinced that such a system merits support and that ultimately the cost for a peer-reviewed open-access publication will be less than publishing free of charge and then making the universities and libraries pay for the journal subscription. Any open access option can only "fly" if the fees are paid for by the funding agency.

Are you sure that you write papers for money? I think that most scientists write papers for "glory" - it is a kind of exhibitionism. Some are more prone to to doing that, some less. I knew some excellent scientists with real devotion who were very reluctant in writing papers. There are more noble motives as well: to enrich the knowledge of mankind etc. If someone really wants to live on his knowledge it is better to choose entrepreneurship or conuslting - but in this case you are several times not permitted to publish. The same is true for corporate research. In these cases you may get decent money without publications.

I think that most of us is also paid to do research and the publication is a necessary part due to the collaborative nature of knowledge.

There are several issues to that.

(1) In fact, in Germany it is possible to receive some payment for publications, through something that is called "VG Wort". They go around all the publishers and collect royalties. You may sign up with them and get your share from the number of papers you published; the cost of a journal enters, the number of subscriptions, the number of total papers, etc. I don't know any German scientist who is really signed up with VG Wort and collects royalties. A friend of mine 20 years ago did this and got a couple bucks for a couple papers. If everybody does that, the cake is divided up to feed more mouths, and hence any royalty will be down to a few cents only.

(2) As long as we as researchers get decent pay (e.g., from governmental funding agencies, our universities, etc.) I think we should not get paid for publications. Some university managers will be happy about your idea, and one might even propose to cut you base salary by, say, 200$ per month, and introduce a bonus system where you get, say, 50$ more each month for each paper you have published in the past year. So if you publish more than 4 papers per year, you will be better off, otherwise you will have less. If you like that: There are universities that established such a bonus system. I think that this is not helpful because the number of publications is fluctuating and it increases the general "publish-or-perish" mentality. Researchers will be, e.g., less interested in R&D for new equipment in their field, and the number of publication varies strongly with your field of research.

(3) I think the fact that some publishers are making big money from our work (and we pay the subscriptions, as well) will ultimately lead to a change in publication policy, towards "open source" or at least non-profit publishers (e.g., in physics: American Physical Society, Insitute of Physics, ...). In order to get there, our funding sources (universities, govt. agencies, industry...) need to be convinced that such a system merits support and that ultimately the cost for a peer-reviewed open-access publication will be less than publishing free of charge and then making the universities and libraries pay for the journal subscription. Any open access option can only "fly" if the fees are paid for by the funding agency.

@Joachim. Yes, you are right, but publishing includes costs - and someone has to pay for it. Either the readers or the witers. Editorial work, selection of referees, technical editing, proofreading involves a LOT of work - and it cannot be done for free. It may be paid from state funds, university projects or whatever, but it costs money. Even if the publication is online. BTW nonprofit does not mean that the entreprise does not make profit, only that the profit is used again to support the activity of the firm. So to make publishing non-profit does not mean that scientific publication does not make profit. It should make enough profit to pay the workers and to pay the depreciation costs.

Dear Joachim ... and Gyorgy!

I appreciate your discussion. Almost everything stands ... except the fact that our authors' rights are collected by publishers instead by us authors - at least so it is in my country! I would be glad to get regularly the royalties for my published papers.

You can be paid if you register a patent based on your research. Otherwise, I don't believe that it can work. We are not writers who get money only for publishing, we have our salaries as scientists to publish.

I would say that it is not authors who make the journal, it is reviewers/referees. And these guy are chosen among the scientists and basically work on journals quality for free. These guys should really be paid.

@Gyorgy. I agree. That's why I feel that funding agencies or universities or major research institutions should pay these fees, not necessarily the libraries. Right now, everyone encourages us to publish with an open access journal, but funding applications for paying the fees are rejected. When publishing with a not-for-profit organization, I at least know that the money they make goes to useful programs or supports scientific meetings and things like that (and does not fill the shareholder's pockets).

@Boris. If the royalties are $1 per paper and per year and you have to fill out a form and mail it once per year, I think it is kind of pointless and not worth the effort. So if you want a fair financial compensation for your work, you need to think of a way to increase the gains of a journal without increasing other production cost. In this case, the library paying for the subscription effectively pays your royalties. Big companies are excluded if one does not submit any publications to them anymore... ;-)

The problem is, however, that our funding is based also on our publication output with "important" journals. In physics: nature (Mcmillan, commercial publisher), Phys. Rev. (APS, non-profit), Phys. Lett. (elsevier, commercial). And some journals are more or less unique in the field, so you don't get around publishing there...

the budding researchers are prone to pray of publishing their R.Paper while subscribing their Journals,and later demands very huge amount.But patent Journals are Patent . they even(only some ) pay to the Research Scholar

One thing you can do is to at least refrain from sending your work to open-access journals (which are plenty recently), for which you (the author) pay, while the reader gets free access. Non-profit institutions such as IEEE or ACM etc. which often have the most knowledgeable journals, will ask you to pay for a publication -- not always, sometimes it is non-compulsory. And libraries are paying for access, or you have to be member of the institution, the author does not get anything. Writing a book with a knowledgeable publisher may get you some royalties but I don't think you will get rich; but it will get you recognition if the book is good (may take you a year or more to write).

First of all sorry to give the following approximative answer:

30% of the "calculated-adjusted-paper generated income- should go to the author.

That's the worst deal an artist would accept for his work from an Art Gallery...

(the best is 50% (:-)))))!!

No it doesn't make any sense. In fact, researchers should be paid for their contribution to Journals and publishers. Researchers should be rewarded for their effort and contribution to the knowledge. I've been thinking of this issue for a long time and We THE researchers should find ways to get rewarded for our effort.@

Some websites pay you for it. https://paperqa.com/make-money-with-your-paper/