Doesn't apply to academic journals articles. Basically you only buy a license to use, you do not buy ownership.

Copyright law for scientific literature is all kinds of fucked up. For academic institutions it's even not THAT bad. You don't want to know what hoops you have to jump through to use them in a commercial environment, and that's not even touching on the massive amounts of money you need to spend on copyright clearance. I'm talking several millions in dirty fiat money here.