Fraud and questionable research practices are on the rise in academia, and so is scientific integrity in general. At the same time, universities are increasingly run like businesses, with oversize management salaries, increasing tuition, a progressive withdrawal of the public sector, an increasing proportion of the faculty hired on temporary contracts, and funding that depends on achieving specific and quantified “knowledge production” in the form of research contributions. These new developments foster an ultra-competitive culture in which the main goal of scientific research — to seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge — is no longer possible. Instead, ultra-competition promotes secrecy, data hacking, and, ultimately, fraudulent practices, the cost of which probably far exceeds that incurred by the freeloaders it was meant to root out. Knowledge simply cannot be taken to be a product like any other.