5 ms·

Nobody is defending plea deals here. Aaron was offered an excellent deal, regardless of how indefensible plea deals might be in general.

by FDSGSG 6y ago

jeltz 6y ago
No, he was offered a bad deal. Copyright violations very rarely result in prison for first time offenders. He also did a mild case of hacking which together might have resulted in a short sentence. But if he had gone to court I doubt he would have got more than 4-6 months, which is the same thing as the plea deal.
- amyjess 6y ago
  It wasn't because of a copyright violation. It was because after he was booted off MIT's network for violating their TOS, he went out of his way to find another way to get back on their network by unauthorized means and resume the same activity he got kicked off for.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    In response to the question "What is the ethical justification for 52 years of stacked federal charges?", is this your final answer?
- manfredo 6y ago
  Swartz wasn't torrenting pirated movies. He was essentially trying to mirror JSTOR. He was programmatically downloading massive numbers of articles, and using mac address spoofing to avoid triggering rate limiting. He also authored a manifesto explicitly declaring his intent to knowingly break the law: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj... Copyright violations rarely result in prison sentences, but copyright violators are rarely seeking to violate copyright on the same scale and with the same outspoken ideological justification as Swartz.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    > copyright violators are rarely seeking to violate copyright on the same scale and with the same outspoken ideological justification as Swartz I disagree. I'd say that Swartz's actions to try and make research freely available online (especially when said research is often funded by taxpayers and not by the copyright holders of the resulting paper) is more noble than for example pirates who publish entertainment material such as movies, music, etc.
- xwdv 6y ago
  If he had taken the deal and not killed himself he would be alive now and a free man 8 years later. Instead he is dead forever. I think the deal was not that bad by comparison.
  - 131012 6y ago
    It depends on how you value freedom.
    - FDSGSG 6y ago
      There's no freedom when you're dead.
ska 6y ago
> Aaron was offered an excellent deal, That's a pretty extraordinary claim, as he had competent legal counsel (I think?) and they rejected it.
Nextgrid 6y ago
Aaron was forced into a case where his options are 1) take the deal, waive your right to a trial and serve a certain sentence, or 2) exercise your right to a trial and in revenge get a much heavier sentence (some people here mention a max of 30 years - even rapists and murderers can get less than that) since the commonplace nature of plea deals over time devalues the "true" sentences as written in the law because nobody serves them. Frankly I don't think this situation delivers justice to neither the victim nor the defendant. If we assume the defendant is guilty, why should he be allowed to get off with a sentence that's 29 years lower than what it should be? If we assume that the defendant is not guilty, is it fair to force him to pick between a fair trial and potential 30 years of prison or 6 months without trial, given that even someone that's not guilty would most likely take the deal and this perverts the course of justice by essentially jailing people based on mere allegations without a trial?
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  >some people here mention a max of 30 years - even rapists and murderers can get less than that Those people either don't know what they're talking about or are deliberately seeking to mislead. >According to Swartz’s defense attorneys, prosecutors claimed that they thought the judge might impose a Guidelines sentence as much as 7 years if Swartz went to trial and was convicted. That’s consistent with a loss valuation in the range of millions of dollars. In contrast, Swartz’s lawyers thought that Swartz might get just probation, which is consistent with a loss calculation at or less than $10,000. http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/ http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa... >So, realistically, Swartz was facing anything from probation to a few years in jail if he went to trial — depending largely on how you value the loss he caused — and either a 4 months in jail or 0-6 months in jail if he pled guilty.

Nobody is defending plea deals here. Aaron was offered an excellent deal, regardless of how indefensible plea deals might be in general.

by FDSGSG 6y ago

Nobody is defending plea deals here. Aaron was offered an excellent deal, regardless of how indefensible plea deals might be in general.

jeltz 6y ago

No, he was offered a bad deal. Copyright violations very rarely result in prison for first time offenders. He also did a mild case of hacking which together might have resulted in a short sentence. But if he had gone to court I doubt he would have got more than 4-6 months, which is the same thing as the plea deal.

amyjess 6y ago
It wasn't because of a copyright violation. It was because after he was booted off MIT's network for violating their TOS, he went out of his way to find another way to get back on their network by unauthorized means and resume the same activity he got kicked off for.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  In response to the question "What is the ethical justification for 52 years of stacked federal charges?", is this your final answer?
manfredo 6y ago
Swartz wasn't torrenting pirated movies. He was essentially trying to mirror JSTOR. He was programmatically downloading massive numbers of articles, and using mac address spoofing to avoid triggering rate limiting. He also authored a manifesto explicitly declaring his intent to knowingly break the law: https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj... Copyright violations rarely result in prison sentences, but copyright violators are rarely seeking to violate copyright on the same scale and with the same outspoken ideological justification as Swartz.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > copyright violators are rarely seeking to violate copyright on the same scale and with the same outspoken ideological justification as Swartz I disagree. I'd say that Swartz's actions to try and make research freely available online (especially when said research is often funded by taxpayers and not by the copyright holders of the resulting paper) is more noble than for example pirates who publish entertainment material such as movies, music, etc.
xwdv 6y ago
If he had taken the deal and not killed himself he would be alive now and a free man 8 years later. Instead he is dead forever. I think the deal was not that bad by comparison.
- 131012 6y ago
  It depends on how you value freedom.
  - FDSGSG 6y ago
    There's no freedom when you're dead.

ska 6y ago

> Aaron was offered an excellent deal, That's a pretty extraordinary claim, as he had competent legal counsel (I think?) and they rejected it.

Nextgrid 6y ago

Aaron was forced into a case where his options are 1) take the deal, waive your right to a trial and serve a certain sentence, or 2) exercise your right to a trial and in revenge get a much heavier sentence (some people here mention a max of 30 years - even rapists and murderers can get less than that) since the commonplace nature of plea deals over time devalues the "true" sentences as written in the law because nobody serves them. Frankly I don't think this situation delivers justice to neither the victim nor the defendant. If we assume the defendant is guilty, why should he be allowed to get off with a sentence that's 29 years lower than what it should be? If we assume that the defendant is not guilty, is it fair to force him to pick between a fair trial and potential 30 years of prison or 6 months without trial, given that even someone that's not guilty would most likely take the deal and this perverts the course of justice by essentially jailing people based on mere allegations without a trial?

FDSGSG 6y ago
>some people here mention a max of 30 years - even rapists and murderers can get less than that Those people either don't know what they're talking about or are deliberately seeking to mislead. >According to Swartz’s defense attorneys, prosecutors claimed that they thought the judge might impose a Guidelines sentence as much as 7 years if Swartz went to trial and was convicted. That’s consistent with a loss valuation in the range of millions of dollars. In contrast, Swartz’s lawyers thought that Swartz might get just probation, which is consistent with a loss calculation at or less than $10,000. http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/ http://volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aa... >So, realistically, Swartz was facing anything from probation to a few years in jail if he went to trial — depending largely on how you value the loss he caused — and either a 4 months in jail or 0-6 months in jail if he pled guilty.