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Byrne seems to have not groked that Swartz had access to JSTOR legally, although from a different institution (Harvard, not MIT) and could have downloaded every
by nickbauman 14y ago
Byrne seems to have not groked that Swartz had access to JSTOR legally, although from a different institution (Harvard, not MIT) and could have downloaded everything legally if he wanted to. The thinking is he went to MIT to make the act illegal; to make a statement. To be civilly disobedient.
The problem is we now have a DOJ that has been corrupted by the PATRIOT act and its kin; with memos legalizing all kinds of state-sponsored acts that were unthinkable before 9/11. It's a different atmosphere than when the Pentagon Papers were leaked. We are moving swiftly towards a predator state; like China or Brazil. Swartz was probably reacting to that.
- bo1024 14y agoGood point. Also that Swartz's primary focus was not just on copyrighted materials (though those too), but also materials whose copyrights had been expired but were still hidden behind paywalls. To JSTOR's credit, they have been opening up access to such files since the incident, which is awesome. (On the other hand, most of JSTOR could be replaced by a dozen 2TB hard drives and a cable modem internet connection, so it's hard to understand what they charge so much for...but I digress.)