Taking money for your research outputs? As an academic working at a university, is it wrong to (personally) accept money for your research outputs? Would this be a bargain you would be happy to take?
EXAMPLE: Suppose you are a Mathematician with valuable algorithms or expertise (e.g., quantum-era code breaking, fancy AI, ...) and you are offered a (secret) contract of $150,000+ in additional salary per year to give access to an external entity (e.g., company) all of your research before it is published. For example, your mathematical proofs and working computer codes. You give them the right to patent any results, to use the codes for their own purpose, and potentially veto the publication of any result they would like you to keep secret.
As an academic working at a university, you do not have unlimited freedom to enter into arrangements of the sorts you describe, but are limited to what your university’s policies will allow you to do (which at my university would certainly not include the hypothetical secret agreement you described). And at established universities those policies have been carefully crafted to balance the university’s rights and its mission of public service against the academic’s desire and right to pursue side interests, including for pay, and also taking into account the fact that such side projects also often benefit society and thus advance the university’s mission.
So the answer to your question is more boring than you might imagine: that is, if you are following the university’s policies, then generally speaking it’s not wrong (unless you are being particularly crafty, misleading in reporting your actions or intentions, or are otherwise pushing the limits of what’s acceptable in a way many people would consider unreasonable); and conversely, if your actions clearly violate university policy, well, I don’t want to generalize too much since one can always think of exceptions, but that’s a pretty good sign that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.
Here are some relevant policies from the University of California system, in case you want to go deeper into this issue: 1, 2, 3.