An hero to us all.

I'd kill myself too if I was associated with Reddit.

He didn't face 50 years for downloading free content, he faced 50 years for stealing it for his own use by creating his own site.

labman: He committed a crime.

So have him pay a year's subscription for each journal. Also some of the journals in JSTOR are moving away from paid access and plenty of academics aren't and never have been thrilled with paid access to academic journal archives.

GAT_00: he faced 50 years for stealing it for his own use by creating his own site.

Except he didn't steal it. Plenty of what's in JSTOR can be found all over the place for free. It's not an exclusive repository. And copying a computer file isn't theft as no one is deprived of access to the file after.

Some links:

The Truth about Aaron Swartz's "Crime"

Lessig: Prosecutor as Bully

My Aaron Swartz, whom I loved (http://www.quinnnorton.com/said/?p=644) cache

Petition to remove the prosecutor

WhyteRaven74: GAT_00: he faced 50 years for stealing it for his own use by creating his own site.

Except he didn't steal it. Plenty of what's in JSTOR can be found all over the place for free. It's not an exclusive repository. And copying a computer file isn't theft as no one is deprived of access to the file after.

Sure, I've got access to most of JSTOR at the moment.  But it's intended for personal use and improvement, and I pay fees to allow that.  Rehosting it is the problem.

GAT_00: Rehosting it is the problem.

A lot of the articles that are at JSTOR are already found at other places, it's not like JSTOR is the only place to find these articles. The repository idea of JSTOR is awesome, the paid access is rather anti-academic and anti-intellectual. But to act like the archives are the sole purvey of JSTOR is not only silly it's wrong.

BTW another factor is JSTOR doesn't own the rights to any of the material in the archives, that belongs either to the organizations that publish the materials or the authors themselves. So JSTOR can't claim any sort of copyright issue, that would be up to the actual copyright holders to decide. Of course since a good number have or plan to have their archives openly accessible online, it's not like they're out anything. In the case of articles where the author has the copyright, lots of professors have links to their work on their faculty web pages, anyone can browse on by and download every paper they've had published. Also some academic departments have central repositories for the work of department members.

Why would you kill just yourself in this kind of situation? At least off the prosecutor too.

Frank N Stein: I'd kill myself too if I was associated with Reddit.

Why?

Frank N Stein: I'd kill myself too if I was associated with Reddit.

Oooh! I'm gonna make an animal meme!

okay.jpg

WhyteRaven74: So have him pay a year's subscription for each journal.

They were charging ten cents a page.

Is this an up or down 'karma'?

I don't know jack about downloading monstrous amounts of free data, but I do know depression. Was his a "pre-existing condition," or something that was a result of the charges leveled against him?

WhyteRaven74: GAT_00: he faced 50 years for stealing it for his own use by creating his own site.

Except he didn't steal it. Plenty of what's in JSTOR can be found all over the place for free. It's not an exclusive repository. And copying a computer file isn't theft as no one is deprived of access to the file after.

Just repeating that again and again doesn't make it true. Theft if theft. If, using your premise he could have just gone "all over the place" to get the content, why did he choose to break into JSTOR...Convenience is not an excuse.

So some depressed dude finally gets the murder-suicide thing in the right order and people are sad?

It's Me Bender: Why would you kill just yourself in this kind of situation? At least off the prosecutor too.

Ahhh someone thinks murder-suicide is in the right order.

Ray Vaughn: Theft if theft

JSTOR doesn't own the files it's archives, they are owned by their respective copyright holders. Without ownership, you can't have theft. What's more many of the files on JSTOR are not exclusive to JSTOR, they're available to anyone and everyone at other places, available legally. So at most JSTOR can claim a loss of subscription revenue. As for as the files are concerned, JSTOR didn't have anything stolen, because it doesn't own them in the first place nor is it holding them as a trusted third party for the purpose of exclusive archival storage.

WhyteRaven74: Ray Vaughn: Theft if theft

JSTOR doesn't own the files it's archives, they are owned by their respective copyright holders. Without ownership, you can't have theft. What's more many of the files on JSTOR are not exclusive to JSTOR, they're available to anyone and everyone at other places, available legally. So at most JSTOR can claim a loss of subscription revenue. As for as the files are concerned, JSTOR didn't have anything stolen, because it doesn't own them in the first place nor is it holding them as a trusted third party for the purpose of exclusive archival storage.

So people should just take books from a library and not return them since the library doesn't own the copyright?

Suckmaster Burstingfoam: Information wants to be free.



Ok. Let's start with your SS number, bank account information, CC numbers, home address, mothers maiden name, grandparents names and the access codes to any other financial dealing you may have.

Giltric: So people should just take books from a library and not return them since the library doesn't own the copyright?

If you take a book from the library and keep it, you deprive someone else who goes to that library of access to that book. If you copy a file from a digital archive, you deprive no one of anything, except possible rights fees or subscription fees, because you've copied the file, you have not actually moved it to another physical location.

Can we all just start to be a little less frickin' serious about all this sh*t now? It's a lot of math, folks. Unplug the grid and it's 1830 and your modern world crawls straight up it's own ass. I'm pretty sure genius was valuable in 1833, also. He fixed more sh*t than he broke and I'd like to see any of the people who were hell bent on nailing him to a tree say that without staring at their feet,

Suckmaster Burstingfoam: Information wants to be free.

If only want storage devices, servers & their maintenance and network access wanted to be free aswell, unfortunately there are realities behind things that must be acknowledged.

This is when I'm thankful I lead an online life nearly as boring as my real life.

/hope they don't start handing out prison time for being on Fark when you're not supposed to be, though

T.M.S.: Let's start with your SS number, bank account information, CC numbers, home address, mothers maiden name, grandparents names and the access codes to any other financial dealing you may have.

That's personal information, the information in academic journals is a wee bit different, also the work that goes into creating it is often funded by the public through the agency of the government. The public is paying for it, yet in many cases doesn't get access to it. A situation plenty of academics don't care for.

Driven to suicide by copyright laws, RIP

WhyteRaven74: Giltric: So people should just take books from a library and not return them since the library doesn't own the copyright?

If you take a book from the library and keep it, you deprive someone else who goes to that library of access to that book. If you copy a file from a digital archive, you deprive no one of anything, except possible rights fees or subscription fees, because you've copied the file, you have not actually moved it to another physical location.

So your saying it's ok to hack a libraries server and steal all the ebooks since its just a digital copy and it doesnt prevent anyone else from being able to put it on their kindle/nook/ipad?