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This really seems like sophistry to me. Everyone agrees that if Swartz had asked the library staff to help him download the entire JStore archive, they would h

This really seems like sophistry to me. Everyone agrees that if Swartz had asked the library staff to help him download the entire JStore archive, they would have clearly said no. The difference between "some jstor articles" and "the entire archive" is huge and significant. His authorization was never a blanket authorization to do whatever he wanted with the JStor access, in part because MIT could not offer that: they could only offer access under terms that JStor set, and those terms banned whole archive scraping.

angersock 13y ago
Er, no. The more honest answer is that we'll never know what would've happened because he didn't ask the librarian--trying to make any stronger a claim is assumption.
brudgers 13y ago
The idea that what is not explicitly prohibited is permitted is a very American attitude toward the laws, rules and regulations. As an illustration, compare the structure of the rules of NFL American Football: http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/pdfs/2012%20-%20Rule%20Book.pdf http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/p... To FIFA's Laws of the Game: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/refereeing/81/42/36/log2013en_neutral.pdf http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/footballdevelopment/refereei...