Can you copyedit this? : "What can be the reason behind such a request in a polite way?" Also clarify that fully funded means fully funded by a scholarship. And how the request/demand/opportunity was presented - in writing to each of you? With a biz plan?

To Willie’s point: Some publishers will even accept a paper and then not publish it for corrupt political reasons. Happened twice with papers on using generic medications to treat CoViD-19. Murderous, or tantamount to, to my 👀.

ACI Adam doesn't prove your assertion: "it's usually not legal." It's a piece in an incomplete chain. In a sound logical argument, it is impossible to accept the premises without also accepting the conclusion. You haven't presented one.

The case didn't find anyone guilty of making illegal copies of anything. It wasn't about that. It's about the appropriateness of billing for estimated value of harms caused by reproductions for private use made from allegedly unlawful sources. The sides weren't arguing over whether there had been such reproductions or not.

Also: I wonder: How many answers have been downvoted into oblivion? (I presume they're largely saying yes, and mods can answer the question.) I sought to paypal some money to some folks in India who had done something awesome (file a legal case about censorship and coercion). They didn't respond. I guess they (or their email filters) thought I was a scammer, and I wouldn't blame them for the mistake. Maybe I should send cash.

Assertion re ACI Adam isn't backed by the quotation.

We agree on that. I am convinced the language you quote is intended to leave room for ambiguity not captured by your literally true short version, and we'll never know.

Have I? I think what you're now saying is merely sufficient, you presented as part of a set of conditions that were necessarily, or at least strongly, indicative. Did Galileo publish it as if it was proven? Rather, I think it's said that he wrote that he had discovered evidence to support Copernicus' heliocentric theory. (And I was tempted to say not in English but thought it too silly to mention. Apparently not.) And I'm tired of this quibbling. You disagree with historians who say the idea was so controversial that the Catholic Church warned Galileo Galilei to abandon it? Fine.