I have a lot of sympathy for all the views expressed here about the high prices of Brill books.  I'm ambivalent myself, about being an editor of a series published by Brill.  When I founded the series (with Paul Unschuld and Larry Conrad) we argued strongly about keeping prices down.  And at first that seemed to work, sort of.  But now prices are extremely high, and we're in a problem situation. €299 for Zysk's book is very much, although one does get two volumes, and there is a huge amount of work in the volumes, both Zysk's scholarly labours and multiple refereeing, proof-reading, good paper, typesetting, binding, marketing and distribution.  It's a very nice physical object, it has to be said.  And it will be on the shelves in a century, when many books less-well produced may no longer be useable.  That sort of thing has to be paid for.  Nevertheless.

I have advocated Open Access publishing for journals.  I'm less sure about books.  It's worth discussing.  Books are very different animals (usually).  I'm not sure the OA model translates to books, although I am sure it's very good for journals.  I especially advocate authors keeping their copyright.  The idea of Open Source, mentioned by Antonio, doesn't apply to academic writing, although I also like the concept.

Antonio also mentioned that Brill hasn't endowed a professorship in Indology.  It would be interesting to know what they do fund, academically.  I know one colleague personally who edits a series for Brill, and whose university receives an annual payment of several thousand dollars from Brill that buys him out of some teaching because of his editorial duties.  Perhaps Brill pays for more that we're not aware of?  It would be worth asking them.

It's always been clear that Brill's business plan is to market to academic libraries, and only incidentally to individuals.  With modern inter-library loan, it's normally not too difficult to get hold of a volume one wants to read. 

Best,

Dominik