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Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents. I have access to JSTOR also. What moral issue can you possibly raise with someone us

Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents. I have access to JSTOR also. What moral issue can you possibly raise with someone using their access to download these documents? It's OK to download 10, but not 1000000? Do you have a moral issue with automated downloads -- and if so, how can you justify JSTOR itself? It is worth noting that JSTOR did not want to press charges in this case. After contacting Swartz, they were satisfied that he was not going to share the documents with others (and they "recovered" them, whatever that means), and that would have been that. The government decided to prosecute, probably to show how serious they are about restricting access to human knowledge (or whatever it is that they thought this prosecution would accomplish).

tesmar2 14y ago
> Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents The JSTOR site says "Libraries and organizations license full-text content for their patrons, and if you are affiliated with one of these institutions, you can access those complete articles." Their site seems to say anyone with a uni affiliation.
- betterunix 14y ago
  Or anyone who is a patron of a university library system, which in this day and age means anyone who has been given access to a university network. Where I am, anyone can get one-week access if someone who is affiliated signs in and generates a unique token for the guest; we frequently do this when researchers from other schools or companies visit my group, but there is no actual restriction on who can be given access. Most universities have a system for allowing members of the public to access their library system, and by extension, JSTOR. Really, it is not much different from walking into a university library and reading the books there. Most of the schools I see allow anyone to walk into their library, without having to prove they have any sort of affiliation. It is as though universities believe their purpose is to spread knowledge or something crazy like that...
  - kanzure 14y ago
    > Or anyone who is a patron of a university library system, > which in this day and age means anyone who has been given > access to a university network. Not everyone is in a university, in fact there are billions of people who aren't in school and who would absolutely benefit from having access to the scientific knowledge contained in these tax-payer-funded documents. The current majority of people who read papers are, of course, going to be in colleges because they are the ones who have access in the first place. I challenge you (in a very light-hearted, positive way) to demonstrate how to access papers as a member of the public. Most universities seem to require you to show up in person to use the library computers. You can subscribe to classes and get a student id to access literature, but then you no longer count as the public, do you? Also, DeepDyve and ReadCube are scams. Anyone who reads a healthy amount gets charged out the wazoo. I didn't even know I had a wazoo!
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "Not everyone is in a university, in fact there are billions of people who aren't in school and who would absolutely benefit from having access to the scientific knowledge contained in these tax-payer-funded documents" Sure, but that was not my point; my point was that there was no moral issue with him downloading these documents, because he had every right to access them, just like anyone else whose computer is connected to a university's network. The underlying assumption of people who think he did something wrong is a combination of (a) that access is only supposed to be for reading the articles, not archiving them and (b) that there is something suspicious about writing a program that automatically downloads things (unless you are running an operation dedicated to archiving). The assumption is that anyone who thinks about these things differently must be some kind of criminal or public danger, and it is an assumption that has been fueled by years of propaganda from businesses whose profits depend on people not doing such things. "I challenge you (in a very light-hearted, positive way) to demonstrate how to access papers as a member of the public" Unfortunately, the only response I have is that the current system is designed to thwart that sort of thing. We live in an anachronistic age when it comes to accessing human knowledge. We continue to assume that we need academic publishing companies to spread that knowledge. We continue to assume that it makes sense for people to physically enter a major library to find the journal articles they are looking for. A century ago, that did actually make sense. You needed industrial-scale printing equipment to make enough copies of academic publications to satisfy the world's needs. For the most part, only universities had the resources to pay the publishers for that work, and only universities had enough space to archive those publications. In this day and age, that is not even remotely true: a typical desktop computer has enough disk space to store more than many university library systems could store on their shelves. One only needs to walk through the bound journals section of a typical university library to see the reality of this century: the bound journals are just sitting there, collecting dust, because everyone is downloading the articles using a computer. So in theory, the general public could have access to this knowledge, and to all future research, and they could even help in the dissemination of that knowledge. In practice, only the lucky few (like me!) who happen to be affiliated with a major university can access it without jumping through hoops or traveling great distances. The sickest part about it is this: I would be prosecuted if I dared use the desktop in my office to give other people access to that knowledge. Stated another way, if I were to use my own knowledge and affiliation with a university to spread knowledge to others, I would be a criminal.
rprasad 14y ago
It's not a matter of restricting access to public knowledge; it's a matter of Aaron draining the village pool. Information shares all of the downsides of the public commons: because it is freely available, no one wants to pay for the maintenance costs. JSTOR charges fees for access to cover the ongoing maintenance costs associated with storing access to thousands of journals and millions of articles published over several centuries. Note also that JSTOR provides assistance with locating articles relevant to the user's needs (i.e., library functions), and such services are frequently more valuable than its archival functions. A wiki will not suffice to maintain access to this information; Wikipedia and Wikileaks have shown that. You would end up with all of the articles but no practical way to find the particular article or articles you are looking for.
- gnosis 14y ago
  "It's not a matter of restricting access to public knowledge; it's a matter of Aaron draining the village pool." Copying documents does not destroy the original copies, so it does not drain anything. "Information shares all of the downsides of the public commons: because it is freely available, no one wants to pay for the maintenance costs." If JSTOR had made these documents freely available, there'd be plenty of people and organizations who'd gladly have paid for the maintenance costs. For example, archive.org. "Note also that JSTOR provides assistance with locating articles relevant to the user's needs (i.e., library functions), and such services are frequently more valuable than its archival functions. ... A wiki will not suffice to maintain access to this information; Wikipedia and Wikileaks have shown that. You would end up with all of the articles but no practical way to find the particular article or articles you are looking for." If anyone wanted to use those services, they could pay JSTOR for them regardless of whether these documents were also available elsewhere.
- devcpp 14y ago
  Then Swartz was no threat. He was going to upload the articles to other people if he wanted to. He was going to have to provide the search tools. I don't understand why they would "[secure] from Mr. Swartz the content that was taken, and [receive] confirmation that the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed".
halfninety 14y ago
Indeed. Public money should pay for the function of entities like JSTOR. The public already paid 99% of the money for public research, yet only 1% of them have access to the fruits because those who paid 1% (for maintaining an archive) want it this way.

tesmar2 14y ago

> Anyone with access to a university network has access to those documents The JSTOR site says "Libraries and organizations license full-text content for their patrons, and if you are affiliated with one of these institutions, you can access those complete articles." Their site seems to say anyone with a uni affiliation.

betterunix 14y ago
Or anyone who is a patron of a university library system, which in this day and age means anyone who has been given access to a university network. Where I am, anyone can get one-week access if someone who is affiliated signs in and generates a unique token for the guest; we frequently do this when researchers from other schools or companies visit my group, but there is no actual restriction on who can be given access. Most universities have a system for allowing members of the public to access their library system, and by extension, JSTOR. Really, it is not much different from walking into a university library and reading the books there. Most of the schools I see allow anyone to walk into their library, without having to prove they have any sort of affiliation. It is as though universities believe their purpose is to spread knowledge or something crazy like that...
- kanzure 14y ago
  > Or anyone who is a patron of a university library system, > which in this day and age means anyone who has been given > access to a university network. Not everyone is in a university, in fact there are billions of people who aren't in school and who would absolutely benefit from having access to the scientific knowledge contained in these tax-payer-funded documents. The current majority of people who read papers are, of course, going to be in colleges because they are the ones who have access in the first place. I challenge you (in a very light-hearted, positive way) to demonstrate how to access papers as a member of the public. Most universities seem to require you to show up in person to use the library computers. You can subscribe to classes and get a student id to access literature, but then you no longer count as the public, do you? Also, DeepDyve and ReadCube are scams. Anyone who reads a healthy amount gets charged out the wazoo. I didn't even know I had a wazoo!
  - betterunix 14y ago
    "Not everyone is in a university, in fact there are billions of people who aren't in school and who would absolutely benefit from having access to the scientific knowledge contained in these tax-payer-funded documents" Sure, but that was not my point; my point was that there was no moral issue with him downloading these documents, because he had every right to access them, just like anyone else whose computer is connected to a university's network. The underlying assumption of people who think he did something wrong is a combination of (a) that access is only supposed to be for reading the articles, not archiving them and (b) that there is something suspicious about writing a program that automatically downloads things (unless you are running an operation dedicated to archiving). The assumption is that anyone who thinks about these things differently must be some kind of criminal or public danger, and it is an assumption that has been fueled by years of propaganda from businesses whose profits depend on people not doing such things. "I challenge you (in a very light-hearted, positive way) to demonstrate how to access papers as a member of the public" Unfortunately, the only response I have is that the current system is designed to thwart that sort of thing. We live in an anachronistic age when it comes to accessing human knowledge. We continue to assume that we need academic publishing companies to spread that knowledge. We continue to assume that it makes sense for people to physically enter a major library to find the journal articles they are looking for. A century ago, that did actually make sense. You needed industrial-scale printing equipment to make enough copies of academic publications to satisfy the world's needs. For the most part, only universities had the resources to pay the publishers for that work, and only universities had enough space to archive those publications. In this day and age, that is not even remotely true: a typical desktop computer has enough disk space to store more than many university library systems could store on their shelves. One only needs to walk through the bound journals section of a typical university library to see the reality of this century: the bound journals are just sitting there, collecting dust, because everyone is downloading the articles using a computer. So in theory, the general public could have access to this knowledge, and to all future research, and they could even help in the dissemination of that knowledge. In practice, only the lucky few (like me!) who happen to be affiliated with a major university can access it without jumping through hoops or traveling great distances. The sickest part about it is this: I would be prosecuted if I dared use the desktop in my office to give other people access to that knowledge. Stated another way, if I were to use my own knowledge and affiliation with a university to spread knowledge to others, I would be a criminal.

rprasad 14y ago

It's not a matter of restricting access to public knowledge; it's a matter of Aaron draining the village pool. Information shares all of the downsides of the public commons: because it is freely available, no one wants to pay for the maintenance costs. JSTOR charges fees for access to cover the ongoing maintenance costs associated with storing access to thousands of journals and millions of articles published over several centuries. Note also that JSTOR provides assistance with locating articles relevant to the user's needs (i.e., library functions), and such services are frequently more valuable than its archival functions. A wiki will not suffice to maintain access to this information; Wikipedia and Wikileaks have shown that. You would end up with all of the articles but no practical way to find the particular article or articles you are looking for.

gnosis 14y ago
"It's not a matter of restricting access to public knowledge; it's a matter of Aaron draining the village pool." Copying documents does not destroy the original copies, so it does not drain anything. "Information shares all of the downsides of the public commons: because it is freely available, no one wants to pay for the maintenance costs." If JSTOR had made these documents freely available, there'd be plenty of people and organizations who'd gladly have paid for the maintenance costs. For example, archive.org. "Note also that JSTOR provides assistance with locating articles relevant to the user's needs (i.e., library functions), and such services are frequently more valuable than its archival functions. ... A wiki will not suffice to maintain access to this information; Wikipedia and Wikileaks have shown that. You would end up with all of the articles but no practical way to find the particular article or articles you are looking for." If anyone wanted to use those services, they could pay JSTOR for them regardless of whether these documents were also available elsewhere.
devcpp 14y ago
Then Swartz was no threat. He was going to upload the articles to other people if he wanted to. He was going to have to provide the search tools. I don't understand why they would "[secure] from Mr. Swartz the content that was taken, and [receive] confirmation that the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed".

halfninety 14y ago

Indeed. Public money should pay for the function of entities like JSTOR. The public already paid 99% of the money for public research, yet only 1% of them have access to the fruits because those who paid 1% (for maintaining an archive) want it this way.