Peer reviews. For the results to be acceptable around the scientific community, their methods and conclusions need to be validated by at least 2 other scientists familiar with that subject. Like someone said, there is axiv.org, that lets you upload your paper without this review, but it’s more of a method to claim precedence if someone else publishes a similar work. It’s usually not a scitation source that is taken seriously. This could, of course, be improved! There are open access journals that charge the scientists instead of the readers, but there are several scam journals popping up every day that will usually publish anything without reviews.
I think whoever owns the rights can do that, not necessarily the artist.