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What would Tufte say about someone that tried to "liberate" his beautiful, expensive and excellent books? Would he be outraged at the sight of "The Visual Displ

What would Tufte say about someone that tried to "liberate" his beautiful, expensive and excellent books? Would he be outraged at the sight of "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" available as a pdf on a torrent site? If Swartz and his ideas were so marvelous, why is Tufte still charging any money for his work?

jamesjporter 14y ago
As I understand it, Swartz believed in open access to publicly funded research, not freedom of information in a more general sense. There is a substantial distinction between the two; I don't think Aaron would have taken issue with Tufte charging for his book.
- maxharris 14y ago
  It turns out that Tufte developed the content for "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" while at Princeton. Although he did self-publish the book later at his own (considerable) expense, where do you think the money Princeton paid him all those years came from? If you consistently apply Swartz's idea here, Tufte is in the wrong for charging for work that taxpayers helped fund. But I have a different take: Swartz's idea is bogus. "In 1975, while at Princeton, Tufte was asked to teach a statistics course to a group of journalists who were visiting the school to study economics. He developed a set of readings and lectures on statistical graphics, which he further developed in joint seminars he subsequently taught with renowned statistician John Tukey, a pioneer in the field of information design. These course materials became the foundation for his first book on information design, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.[5][6] After difficult negotiations with mainline publishers failed, Tufte decided to self-publish Visual Display in 1982, working closely with graphic designer Howard Gralla. He financed the work by taking out a second mortgage on his home. The book quickly became a commercial success and secured his transition from political scientist to information expert.[5]" Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte
  - danso 14y ago
    Does coursework at a privately-funded institution count as publicly-funded research? Let's pretend that Princeton is a government institution: if someone uses his own salary, from the government's payroll, to develop and self-publish a book, that work belongs to the government? Did Tufte's mortgage belong to the government (or Princeton, in this case), too?
    - maxharris 14y ago
      Of course not. That's my entire point: given today's mixed economy, when public money is used to aid the creation of a thing, it does not mean that the resulting work ought to belong to the public, contracts and agreements be damned. Swartz obviously did not agree with that, or he would not have committed those crimes against JSTOR and MIT. (By the way, the "private" universities, Princeton included, are only nominally private, and it's been that way for a long time. I think that should change: there ought to be a full separation of state and education.)
      - betterunix 14y ago
        "today's mixed economy" Today's economy is not really relevant to something that happened in 1975. Things have greatly changed since then, particularly when it comes to the dissemination of human knowledge. In today's world, a book can be published at no cost over the Internet. Scholarly articles, course notes, recordings of course lectures, and all the other methods of communicating knowledge can all be done rapidly, cheaply, and on a global scale using the Internet. "it does not mean that the resulting work ought to belong to the public" As Thomas Jefferson put it, "The field of knowledge is the common property of mankind." The idea that a person's knowledge should be hidden behind paywalls, or that it should collect dust on the bookshelves of a university library, should be considered disgusting in today's world. Copyright only ever made sense when it came to academic publishing as a way to promote the publishing industry, because at one time the publishing industry was the most effective system for spreading knowledge (ironically, copyright started in England out of an attempt to censor the publishing industry). The moment we created a better system -- the Internet -- we should have reevaluated the application of copyright to academic publishing, and rewrote the law to promote the use of the Internet over the publishing industry. Instead, what we have today is a bizarre situation: the publishing industry has more power than ever before under copyright law, and the Internet is being used to further restrict access to knowledge. Publishers are using copyrights and abusing the Internet as a way to attack the used book market, and even to avoid actually publishing journals (why do we even bother with the publishing industry if they do not actually publish things?). The moral issue here is not whether or not human knowledge should be shared online, but whether or not the academic publishing industry should even be a player anymore. "crimes against JSTOR and MIT" That the word "crime" is even mentioned in the context of what Aaron did is a sign that our legal system has become completely disconnected from serving the interests of society. The law apparently considers the protection of the revenue stream of an anachronistic publishing industry to be of greater value than improving access to knowledge. I suppose you might say that people should just pay up or travel to the nearest university library -- and if they cannot afford to pay and cannot afford the travel costs, too bad (after all, if they wanted to be educated, why are they so poor?). Aaron was doing his civic duty by breaking bad laws; more people should follow his example.
danso 14y ago
FWIW, a few years ago, someone asked Tufte for a copy of his out-of-print "Data Analysis for Politics and Policy" and Tufte posted the PDF files of it: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00001F http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0... It's an excellent book. Not as groundbreaking (or as illustrated) as his data visualization books, but filled with interesting observations on the intersection of data and policy. He really should do a new edition of it.
- maxharris 14y ago
  Thanks for the link! That is interesting.
subsystem 14y ago
It is already available on torrent/cyberlocker sites.
scarmig 14y ago
The relevant question isn't whether Tufte would approve of someone pirating his books but whether he would make a huge legal case out of it. I'm pretty confident in saying that he wouldn't try to make everyone who downloaded it a federal felon and get thrown in prison for even a day, let alone years.
ghshephard 14y ago
There is a very real difference between commercial work and research that has been paid for by the taxpayer. Aaron was about about freeing public information.

jamesjporter 14y ago

As I understand it, Swartz believed in open access to publicly funded research, not freedom of information in a more general sense. There is a substantial distinction between the two; I don't think Aaron would have taken issue with Tufte charging for his book.

maxharris 14y ago
It turns out that Tufte developed the content for "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" while at Princeton. Although he did self-publish the book later at his own (considerable) expense, where do you think the money Princeton paid him all those years came from? If you consistently apply Swartz's idea here, Tufte is in the wrong for charging for work that taxpayers helped fund. But I have a different take: Swartz's idea is bogus. "In 1975, while at Princeton, Tufte was asked to teach a statistics course to a group of journalists who were visiting the school to study economics. He developed a set of readings and lectures on statistical graphics, which he further developed in joint seminars he subsequently taught with renowned statistician John Tukey, a pioneer in the field of information design. These course materials became the foundation for his first book on information design, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.[5][6] After difficult negotiations with mainline publishers failed, Tufte decided to self-publish Visual Display in 1982, working closely with graphic designer Howard Gralla. He financed the work by taking out a second mortgage on his home. The book quickly became a commercial success and secured his transition from political scientist to information expert.[5]" Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte
- danso 14y ago
  Does coursework at a privately-funded institution count as publicly-funded research? Let's pretend that Princeton is a government institution: if someone uses his own salary, from the government's payroll, to develop and self-publish a book, that work belongs to the government? Did Tufte's mortgage belong to the government (or Princeton, in this case), too?
  - maxharris 14y ago
    Of course not. That's my entire point: given today's mixed economy, when public money is used to aid the creation of a thing, it does not mean that the resulting work ought to belong to the public, contracts and agreements be damned. Swartz obviously did not agree with that, or he would not have committed those crimes against JSTOR and MIT. (By the way, the "private" universities, Princeton included, are only nominally private, and it's been that way for a long time. I think that should change: there ought to be a full separation of state and education.)
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "today's mixed economy" Today's economy is not really relevant to something that happened in 1975. Things have greatly changed since then, particularly when it comes to the dissemination of human knowledge. In today's world, a book can be published at no cost over the Internet. Scholarly articles, course notes, recordings of course lectures, and all the other methods of communicating knowledge can all be done rapidly, cheaply, and on a global scale using the Internet. "it does not mean that the resulting work ought to belong to the public" As Thomas Jefferson put it, "The field of knowledge is the common property of mankind." The idea that a person's knowledge should be hidden behind paywalls, or that it should collect dust on the bookshelves of a university library, should be considered disgusting in today's world. Copyright only ever made sense when it came to academic publishing as a way to promote the publishing industry, because at one time the publishing industry was the most effective system for spreading knowledge (ironically, copyright started in England out of an attempt to censor the publishing industry). The moment we created a better system -- the Internet -- we should have reevaluated the application of copyright to academic publishing, and rewrote the law to promote the use of the Internet over the publishing industry. Instead, what we have today is a bizarre situation: the publishing industry has more power than ever before under copyright law, and the Internet is being used to further restrict access to knowledge. Publishers are using copyrights and abusing the Internet as a way to attack the used book market, and even to avoid actually publishing journals (why do we even bother with the publishing industry if they do not actually publish things?). The moral issue here is not whether or not human knowledge should be shared online, but whether or not the academic publishing industry should even be a player anymore. "crimes against JSTOR and MIT" That the word "crime" is even mentioned in the context of what Aaron did is a sign that our legal system has become completely disconnected from serving the interests of society. The law apparently considers the protection of the revenue stream of an anachronistic publishing industry to be of greater value than improving access to knowledge. I suppose you might say that people should just pay up or travel to the nearest university library -- and if they cannot afford to pay and cannot afford the travel costs, too bad (after all, if they wanted to be educated, why are they so poor?). Aaron was doing his civic duty by breaking bad laws; more people should follow his example.

danso 14y ago

FWIW, a few years ago, someone asked Tufte for a copy of his out-of-print "Data Analysis for Politics and Policy" and Tufte posted the PDF files of it: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00001F http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0... It's an excellent book. Not as groundbreaking (or as illustrated) as his data visualization books, but filled with interesting observations on the intersection of data and policy. He really should do a new edition of it.

maxharris 14y ago
Thanks for the link! That is interesting.

subsystem 14y ago

It is already available on torrent/cyberlocker sites.

scarmig 14y ago

The relevant question isn't whether Tufte would approve of someone pirating his books but whether he would make a huge legal case out of it. I'm pretty confident in saying that he wouldn't try to make everyone who downloaded it a federal felon and get thrown in prison for even a day, let alone years.

ghshephard 14y ago

There is a very real difference between commercial work and research that has been paid for by the taxpayer. Aaron was about about freeing public information.