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He is accused of stealing bandwidth from JSTOR, not the documents. "Theft of services" not theft of property. Theft of bandwidth is almost as absurd as theft vi

He is accused of stealing bandwidth from JSTOR, not the documents. "Theft of services" not theft of property. Theft of bandwidth is almost as absurd as theft via copying. JSTOR apparently isn't interested in free transmission of knowledge

a3camero 15y ago
If you read the indictment you'll see that they very much are not interested in free transmission of knowledge. They charge >$50k/yr for access: " For a large research university, this annual subscription fee for JSTOR’s various collections of content can cost more than $50,000."
- jackpirate 15y ago
  That price actually seems pretty reasonable for a large research university. The real question is how much they charge individuals who want to get an article. My first google search (http://www.jstor.org/pss/27757488 http://www.jstor.org/pss/27757488) results in $12/article. This is very steep when you're trying to do research and don't even know if the article is what you're looking for.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    Well, you wouldn't want any old rabble getting access to valuable knowledge. Far better for that access to be safely controlled by the major research institutions, who can clearly be trusted to pursue knowledge in a responsible manner.
  - a3camero 15y ago
    How is that reasonable? Sounds like Mr. Swartz was willing to host them for free! And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling police. But seriously, $12/article is ludicrous. That must be way above cost recovery or they're not doing a very efficient job of running JSTOR. Perhaps the co-founder of Reddit would do a better job...
  - xefer 15y ago
    Most public libraries have relationships with JSTOR that allow members to access the articles online. I use the Boston Public Library and look up articles via Google Scholar. All free.
    - apu 15y ago
      relationships = they pay the institutional fee (possibly reduced) to JSTOR
    - kragen 15y ago
      Some public libraries do, but the vast majority of public libraries in the world do not.
      - ars 15y ago
        Are you sure? Maybe not in the world, but I'm pretty sure all large public libraries in the US do subscribe to these kinds of databases.
        kragen 15y ago
        I admit that I don't have statistics [edit: on libraries], but most libraries in the world are not large or in the US, and JSTOR's prices for a "small" library in "the rest of the world" are much, much larger than [edit: wrong — comparable to or perhaps a bit larger than, but not much, much larger than] their entire budget. Check out http://support.jstor.org/csp/PriceCalculator/ http://support.jstor.org/csp/PriceCalculator/. This code (for Chrome) gives me a yearly price of $81162.70, although it hangs the browser for a while first: function mouseEvent() { var event = document.createEvent("MouseEvents"); event.initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, false, false, false, false, 0, null); return event; } function each(list, thunk) { list = Array.prototype.slice.call(list); for (var ii = 0; ii < list.length; ii++) { thunk(list[ii]); } } each(document.getElementsByClassName('expand'), function(link) { link.dispatchEvent(mouseEvent()) }) each(document.getElementsByClassName('e-only'), function(link) { link.dispatchEvent(mouseEvent()) })

a3camero 15y ago

If you read the indictment you'll see that they very much are not interested in free transmission of knowledge. They charge >$50k/yr for access: " For a large research university, this annual subscription fee for JSTOR’s various collections of content can cost more than $50,000."

jackpirate 15y ago
That price actually seems pretty reasonable for a large research university. The real question is how much they charge individuals who want to get an article. My first google search (http://www.jstor.org/pss/27757488 http://www.jstor.org/pss/27757488) results in $12/article. This is very steep when you're trying to do research and don't even know if the article is what you're looking for.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  Well, you wouldn't want any old rabble getting access to valuable knowledge. Far better for that access to be safely controlled by the major research institutions, who can clearly be trusted to pursue knowledge in a responsible manner.
- a3camero 15y ago
  How is that reasonable? Sounds like Mr. Swartz was willing to host them for free! And he would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling police. But seriously, $12/article is ludicrous. That must be way above cost recovery or they're not doing a very efficient job of running JSTOR. Perhaps the co-founder of Reddit would do a better job...
- xefer 15y ago
  Most public libraries have relationships with JSTOR that allow members to access the articles online. I use the Boston Public Library and look up articles via Google Scholar. All free.
  - apu 15y ago
    relationships = they pay the institutional fee (possibly reduced) to JSTOR
  - kragen 15y ago
    Some public libraries do, but the vast majority of public libraries in the world do not.
    - ars 15y ago
      Are you sure? Maybe not in the world, but I'm pretty sure all large public libraries in the US do subscribe to these kinds of databases.
      - kragen 15y ago
        I admit that I don't have statistics [edit: on libraries], but most libraries in the world are not large or in the US, and JSTOR's prices for a "small" library in "the rest of the world" are much, much larger than [edit: wrong — comparable to or perhaps a bit larger than, but not much, much larger than] their entire budget. Check out http://support.jstor.org/csp/PriceCalculator/ http://support.jstor.org/csp/PriceCalculator/. This code (for Chrome) gives me a yearly price of $81162.70, although it hangs the browser for a while first: function mouseEvent() { var event = document.createEvent("MouseEvents"); event.initMouseEvent("click", true, true, window, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, false, false, false, false, 0, null); return event; } function each(list, thunk) { list = Array.prototype.slice.call(list); for (var ii = 0; ii < list.length; ii++) { thunk(list[ii]); } } each(document.getElementsByClassName('expand'), function(link) { link.dispatchEvent(mouseEvent()) }) each(document.getElementsByClassName('e-only'), function(link) { link.dispatchEvent(mouseEvent()) })