False dichotomy: he's neither the Capone nor Rosa Parks. He clearly did not do it to benefit himself directly as Capone did. Now let's assume for a second that

False dichotomy: he's neither the Capone nor Rosa Parks. He clearly did not do it to benefit himself directly as Capone did. Now let's assume for a second that booze is just as important as scientific research. He would be equivalent to an anti-prohibition activist that ran a boat to Canada to pick up booze, but only charged for costs of operating the boat and the purchase price of the booze (operating at no profit), and never drank any himself. He would not want to get caught for two reasons: he would not be able to provide the booze to those who need it and it would interfere with his plans to run as an anti-prohibition candidate which he can't with a felony on his record. Utility is discrete rather than linear here: the cost of going "clean record" to "petty felon" is greater than going from "petty felon" to "petty felon with another conviction" (non-violent felonies are usually not subject to three-strike laws). So here's what I would find a fit punishment: * Monetary retribution to MIT and investigating agencies (as well as JSTOR if they so choose). Capped as to be reasonable. * Misdemeanor conviction subject to being expunged if his record stays clear. * No jail sentence, but perhaps community service that involved tutoring jail inmates (it would give him a realistic view of what jail is like). * Some form of supervised parole with the condition that doing what he did again would mean jail and a felony charges. * No restrictions whatsoever on his speech, but he should he prohibited about talking of his exact punishment/settlement (so that it's imagined to be more harsh than it really is). Overall, maintain high incentives for him to not break the law again and to instead use other means to change it. That does have one problem, however: it does not deter others from doing the same. Yet, as far as I understand, there aren't that many people seeking to do what Aaron did: the intersection between "people willing to torrent copyrighted material that they gleaned by breaking captchas with a script" and "people strongly supportive of open access with no profit motive" consisted of Aaron. What he did was rare and unusual, so punishingly him harshly would do little to reduce crime -- there's no one else to deter.