<crucini>, thanks for your kind words. I may not have been as clear as I should have been, so let me try again. Let's look at what JSTOR itself said: "The case

<crucini>, thanks for your kind words. I may not have been as clear as I should have been, so let me try again. Let's look at what JSTOR itself said: "The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset... JSTOR settled any civil claims we might have had against him in June 2011..." http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz http://about.jstor.org/statement-swartz You're right that if victims can be intimidated into asking for non-prosecution, that would be a problem! But what JSTOR said above is precisely not the language of an organization that's been intimidated. More broadly, the problem lies with the over-criminalization of everyday activities, especially in federal law, as Harvey Silverglate has documented in "Three Felonies a Day." And, if you want to go back further in history, the modern police-prosecutor, victim-has-no-say approach to criminal charges is a relatively modern phenomenon. There are other ways to approach criminal law; I'd refer you to Bruce Benson's "Enterprise of Law" for more on that.