4 ms·

It makes a big difference. Four million is apparently the majority of JSTOR's database. Keep in mind that JSTOR doesn't own those articles, it just arranges app

It makes a big difference. Four million is apparently the majority of JSTOR's database. Keep in mind that JSTOR doesn't own those articles, it just arranges approved access to paying institutions on behalf of the various journals which do own the articles. If Aaron had distributed them he might have damaged around a thousand different institutions involved in an important segment of the knowledge and innovation industry. You can argue that that industry should change but I am not sure I can agree that a brute force assault is a good way to create constructive change, especially in a relatively fragile and cash-strapped field like academia. Anyway, I've used JSTOR a lot as a university student. It's a really good service. They don't create the economics of the journal industry, they just try to work within it. And no, I disagree with you, Aaron's actions strike me as extreme and out of the ordinary.

colin_jack 14y ago
"If Aaron had distributed them he might have damaged around a thousand different institutions involved in an important segment of the knowledge and innovation industry" I know there is his manifesto from a couple of years ago but we can't be sure what he was going to do with them.
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  Do you have a link to that?
  - colin_jack 14y ago
    Yup I was referring to this one: https://gist.github.com/4552726 https://gist.github.com/4552726
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - cristoperb 14y ago
    Here it is on archive.org in several different formats: http://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto http://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  The most interesting thing is that the manifesto really walks a fine line. For example, here is one of the most relevant parts: "We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks." Now here's the funny thing: The first two arguably aren't illegal or infringing. If something is out of copyright then you can copy it. If you interpret buying a secret database as actually buying the distribution rights to it, neither is that. And if you read it in that context, you can imagine circumstances in which the same could be done to journals in specific circumstances, e.g. as a call for academics or their universities to retain their copyright so that they could do so with authorization, or with the subset of journals that charge for access but still allow liberal redistribution by those who have paid, etc. On the other hand, he's talking about civil disobedience, which implies lawbreaking. It's a conflicted piece. So you have that, and then you have the fact that he was known to do work on text processing that may require a large corpus of articles for a database, which provides a rational alternative justification for downloading the articles other than to post them to file sharing networks -- or perhaps he intended to do that and also post that subset of the articles downloaded which could legally be posted, either because they're in the public domain or were appropriately licensed. The point is we don't know, and the prosecution has the burden to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So even if you think it's more likely than not that he would have posted them all to Pirate Bay, do you think so beyond a reasonable doubt? Because if I was on the jury, to me, the above doesn't feel like beyond a reasonable doubt.
Peaker 14y ago
Or his actions could have spread the wealth of information to many who lack access to it, facilitating further progress. The notion that publicly funded research works are behind paywalls is absurd. In any case, we will never know, because he never got around to actually distributing or doing anything with the downloaded products of public funding.
- mpyne 14y ago
  Are you sure that every article behind the JSTOR paywall was 100% publically funded? That's one question I've never heard the answer to. Not to mention, let's say we're talking about stuff funded by the U.S. taxpayers... are you sure they would want those scientific articles to be freely available outside the U.S.? Similar questions apply to things funded by the U.K., France, etc. Who gets to make that choice? In Aaron's world, he anointed himself Caesar and said that he gets to do so...
  - kanzure 14y ago
    > Are you sure that every article behind the JSTOR paywall was 100% publically funded? No, but we also don't know if his 'keepgrabbing' script was checking whether or not an article was in the public domain. This metadata is somewhat present on the JSTOR pages so it's conceivable that he might have been checking.... or not.
  - corporalagumbo 14y ago
    Yes, I agree with you. This issue has nothing to do with the economics and apparent social justice of the journal publishing industry/complex. This is about headstrong young white men deciding that the rules do not apply to them any more.
    - Peaker 14y ago
      It is about extremely accomplished "young white men" deciding that unjust restrictions (not even rules, but terms of use of a website) should not be obeyed.
jacquesm 14y ago
> especially in a relatively fragile and cash-strapped field like academia. Academia does not publish articles. Publishers do and they are anything but cash strapped, check out Elsevier for instance.
- mpyne 14y ago
  Ah yes, the flipside of the normal rule of law, where it only gets directed at the poor. Now you're saying it's OK to mug someone, as long as they're rich and wouldn't have really needed the money anyways.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    What a ridiculous thing to say. I never said it was ok to mug someone because they're rich. (1) this is an organization, not a person (2) they're not being 'mugged' (see below), it's us that are being mugged every time we want to read about some piece of research (3) whether or not they 'need money' isn't a factor (4) use of the word 'mugging' implies violence, which was not applicable here The law has long recognized that there is such a thing as 'the public good' as well as 'the public domain'. That didn't stop Disney from getting rich over stories already in the public domain and it won't stop publishers from making money on content. There is no innate right to wall off a chunk of human heritage and claim ownership, even though lobbying power and money have distorted the balance of power substantially.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      > There is no innate right to wall off a chunk of human heritage and claim ownership, even though lobbying power and money have distorted the balance of power substantially. That I agree with, along with our problems with the public domain and copyright reform. I just don't like the reasoning couched in language about how much benefit a particular party has obtained. E.g. we might decide that copyright period of, say, a year is hurtful and should be extended because overall (or on average) not enough benefit is obtained overall for those with copyright protection, causing an overall hurtful effect to society. But we wouldn't base that decision just on party A or B. I understand you may simply have been using a specific example to speak for the general principle though, and if that's the case I apologize for jumping on your argument like that.
wpietri 14y ago
Your theory is that a lot of libraries would suddenly stop subscribing to JSTOR because there's an old torrent of articles out there? That strikes me as ludicrous. I believe there is no circumstance under which a release of the articles would have threatened JSTOR's business model in any significant way. And I think JSTOR believes that as well, which is why they told the feds not to pursue this.

colin_jack 14y ago

"If Aaron had distributed them he might have damaged around a thousand different institutions involved in an important segment of the knowledge and innovation industry" I know there is his manifesto from a couple of years ago but we can't be sure what he was going to do with them.

corporalagumbo 14y ago
Do you have a link to that?
- colin_jack 14y ago
  Yup I was referring to this one: https://gist.github.com/4552726 https://gist.github.com/4552726
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- cristoperb 14y ago
  Here it is on archive.org in several different formats: http://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto http://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto
AnthonyMouse 14y ago
The most interesting thing is that the manifesto really walks a fine line. For example, here is one of the most relevant parts: "We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks." Now here's the funny thing: The first two arguably aren't illegal or infringing. If something is out of copyright then you can copy it. If you interpret buying a secret database as actually buying the distribution rights to it, neither is that. And if you read it in that context, you can imagine circumstances in which the same could be done to journals in specific circumstances, e.g. as a call for academics or their universities to retain their copyright so that they could do so with authorization, or with the subset of journals that charge for access but still allow liberal redistribution by those who have paid, etc. On the other hand, he's talking about civil disobedience, which implies lawbreaking. It's a conflicted piece. So you have that, and then you have the fact that he was known to do work on text processing that may require a large corpus of articles for a database, which provides a rational alternative justification for downloading the articles other than to post them to file sharing networks -- or perhaps he intended to do that and also post that subset of the articles downloaded which could legally be posted, either because they're in the public domain or were appropriately licensed. The point is we don't know, and the prosecution has the burden to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So even if you think it's more likely than not that he would have posted them all to Pirate Bay, do you think so beyond a reasonable doubt? Because if I was on the jury, to me, the above doesn't feel like beyond a reasonable doubt.

Peaker 14y ago

Or his actions could have spread the wealth of information to many who lack access to it, facilitating further progress. The notion that publicly funded research works are behind paywalls is absurd. In any case, we will never know, because he never got around to actually distributing or doing anything with the downloaded products of public funding.

mpyne 14y ago
Are you sure that every article behind the JSTOR paywall was 100% publically funded? That's one question I've never heard the answer to. Not to mention, let's say we're talking about stuff funded by the U.S. taxpayers... are you sure they would want those scientific articles to be freely available outside the U.S.? Similar questions apply to things funded by the U.K., France, etc. Who gets to make that choice? In Aaron's world, he anointed himself Caesar and said that he gets to do so...
- kanzure 14y ago
  > Are you sure that every article behind the JSTOR paywall was 100% publically funded? No, but we also don't know if his 'keepgrabbing' script was checking whether or not an article was in the public domain. This metadata is somewhat present on the JSTOR pages so it's conceivable that he might have been checking.... or not.
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  Yes, I agree with you. This issue has nothing to do with the economics and apparent social justice of the journal publishing industry/complex. This is about headstrong young white men deciding that the rules do not apply to them any more.
  - Peaker 14y ago
    It is about extremely accomplished "young white men" deciding that unjust restrictions (not even rules, but terms of use of a website) should not be obeyed.

jacquesm 14y ago

> especially in a relatively fragile and cash-strapped field like academia. Academia does not publish articles. Publishers do and they are anything but cash strapped, check out Elsevier for instance.

mpyne 14y ago
Ah yes, the flipside of the normal rule of law, where it only gets directed at the poor. Now you're saying it's OK to mug someone, as long as they're rich and wouldn't have really needed the money anyways.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  What a ridiculous thing to say. I never said it was ok to mug someone because they're rich. (1) this is an organization, not a person (2) they're not being 'mugged' (see below), it's us that are being mugged every time we want to read about some piece of research (3) whether or not they 'need money' isn't a factor (4) use of the word 'mugging' implies violence, which was not applicable here The law has long recognized that there is such a thing as 'the public good' as well as 'the public domain'. That didn't stop Disney from getting rich over stories already in the public domain and it won't stop publishers from making money on content. There is no innate right to wall off a chunk of human heritage and claim ownership, even though lobbying power and money have distorted the balance of power substantially.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    > There is no innate right to wall off a chunk of human heritage and claim ownership, even though lobbying power and money have distorted the balance of power substantially. That I agree with, along with our problems with the public domain and copyright reform. I just don't like the reasoning couched in language about how much benefit a particular party has obtained. E.g. we might decide that copyright period of, say, a year is hurtful and should be extended because overall (or on average) not enough benefit is obtained overall for those with copyright protection, causing an overall hurtful effect to society. But we wouldn't base that decision just on party A or B. I understand you may simply have been using a specific example to speak for the general principle though, and if that's the case I apologize for jumping on your argument like that.

wpietri 14y ago

Your theory is that a lot of libraries would suddenly stop subscribing to JSTOR because there's an old torrent of articles out there? That strikes me as ludicrous. I believe there is no circumstance under which a release of the articles would have threatened JSTOR's business model in any significant way. And I think JSTOR believes that as well, which is why they told the feds not to pursue this.