Do you mean hard-working academics whose salaries are paid by taxes, a large fraction of which come from corporate taxes? :) As one of those taxpayer funded developers, I am still happy to develop software that is as easily used by commercial entities as it is by academic ones.

I came here looking for when UCSC's table browser will have a COSMIC track for hg38, now maybe I found the answer:

Very little will change for academic researchers; they will still have access to all releases for free but they will be asked to agree to academic use license terms, including provisions preventing further distribution of the database.

Doesn't that screw with consolidating resources like UCSC's table browser and Biomart?

@Emily_Ensembl is it necessary to have an academic email address to download the files? I don't have an academic email address any more and got no response last time I tried. I'm working on an open source project and would like to include a more recent version of the COSMIC.

@Matt Chambers COSMIC is funded by Wellcome Trust and COSMIC is managed by Sanger in the UK. Wellcome is probably tax-free, but privately funded. However iirc the data in COSMIC is submitted from many institutions around the world.

As for redistribution, while I don't intend to redistribute the database in its entirety, I want my users (the public) to be able to find COSMIC data for a particular position or range. That puts the burden on my software to prevent automated access to the COSMIC data. The licensing has beome very restrictive and problematic. I doubt they would even agree to my intended use. Now it's moved to an elitist profit-driven model instead of using the data for its original purpose, to cure disease.

I've spent many years doing software development for cancer biology research and there is a consistent theme I've observed. The vast majority of these academics are hypocrites, profiting off the misery and suffering of others while grandstanding with their false altruism. Many among us have no interest in curing disease or even doing good science, and are simply in it for the money.