
The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Aaron Swartz - mecredis
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-brilliant-life-and-tragic-death-of-aaron-swartz-20130215
======
droithomme
It's frustrating to see these articles continue to leave out some of the most
relevant parts of his work.

According to Ars Technica's interview with Swartz asking why he downloaded the
JSTOR documents, he referenced his bio in the Demand Progress statement, which
notes that "in conjunction with Shireen Barday, he downloaded and analyzed
441,170 law review articles to determine the source of their funding; the
results were published in the Stanford Law Review. From 2010-11, he researched
these topics as a Fellow at the Harvard Ethics Center Lab on Institutional
Corruption."

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/reddit-founder-
ar...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/reddit-founder-arrested-for-
excessive-jstor-downloads/)

Here is the result of his research:

[http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/punitive-
dama...](http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/punitive-damages-
remunerated-research-and-legal-profession)

It found that there was extensive corruption in law journal publications which
were often commissioned for specific upcoming cases.

That research work led to his position as Harvard Fellow continuing that
specific work of analyzing large journal datasets to find corruption. That is
why he downloaded the journals - to continue his research into analyzing large
datasets to find connections that indicate corruption.

There can be no doubt that many people were unhappy about the corruption in
the legal industry which he uncovered using his analysis methods. He was
continuing that research on a broader scale, which he plainly indicates in his
response to Ars Technica and is substantiated by his biographical, research
and publication history.

As a Harvard Fellow, and as a MIT visitor, and as the son of a MIT employee
visiting, he has the right to access those articles, and MIT paid for that
access to JSTOR, which JSTOR had no legitimate right to withhold from a
credentialed researcher with valid access. He only had to circumvent anything
because JSTOR implemented access countermeasures which were contrary to their
access agreement with MIT. His circumvention was only for the purpose of
obtaining the access he was legally entitled to, and thus was valid.

The arguments that he was planing to redistribute articles are completely
without merit and are nothing more than propaganda spread by the criminals at
the Justice Department who targeted him for destruction because they are
corrupt and he was someone who had already revealed systematic corruption in
their legal system and published about their corruption in Stanford Law
Journal.

~~~
gojomo
As a matter of common sense, imagine there's someone else, let's call him Bob.
Bob has said he agrees with the 'Guerrila Open Access Manifesto'. Bob's
written that he believes anyone with access to academic journal articles has
the right and the ethical duty to upload them where they can be shared freely.
Bob says, if he had such access, he would do his ethical duty.

If we were to then hand Bob some hard drives with the full JSTOR archive, what
do you think Bob would do?

It's possible Aaron's interest was his own research, or that of some
collaborators. The DoJ may not have been able to prove, to court standards,
that he had any intent to distribute. They may not have even been able to
prove he authored the 'manifesto'.

Bur we aren't in a court and spin can't help Aaron now. Putting the whole
JSTOR archive in torrents would have been consistent with his stated goals,
values, and the 'manifesto' call-to-action. (Also, consistent with his earlier
writing at <http://bits.are.notabug.com.>)

The idea he planned to redistribute widely has plenty of merit. The criminal
case is over; there's no need to water down Aaron's ideals, just to try to
make the prosecutors look worse. The ideals still deserve accurate reporting.

~~~
droithomme
Ah yes, his one page letter where he says "We need to take stuff that's out of
copyright and add it to the archive." In notabug he says child porn should be
legalized and he supports the overthrow of the US Government - are you also
saying then that he is a child porn user and terrorist since he advocates for
both?

I myself share many of his views and more. What does that mean for me though?
Here are some examples. I believe US patent law is very dysfunctional, and
that copyright privilege has been extended far past the length that they best
serve the public good. I agree with Aaron's statement that child porn laws are
used to torment people who don't actually harm children. I also find that drug
laws are used as a tool of persecution against minority communities, the US
engages in terrorist actions against innocent people using drone strikes and
targeted assassinations, that there is extensive corruption in the judicial
system. I agree that everyone does have the right to republish both papers out
of copyright, and those explicitly in the public domain. I agree that it is
absurd that the academic journal system is dysfunctional and often takes
publicly funded work, for which it has paid the author and researcher nothing,
and seizes copyright and places it behind a paywall, which is an abomination.

I am not the only one with these beliefs either, each of them is common enough
among the public as to be a normal and reasonable position held by many.

Despite all these beliefs, I have never uploaded copyrighted material to
bittorrent other than works I personally own the copyright to. I have never
engaged in terrorist action against the government. I have never done illegal
drugs. I have never looked at, possessed or transmitted child porn. My
positions that certain things that have been criminalized which should not be,
and that the law is not working well in some areas, is not evidence whatsoever
that I have engaged in any of these acts. You however make the claim that
because Swartz advocated "to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to
the archive." and because he actually did take public domain legal documents
and legally place them in public archives, that this means his analysis of the
JSTOR archive was not analysis at all but was to steal the copyrighted
material there.

That is an absurd accusation. You might as well accuse him of distributing
child porn and being a terrorist, because decriminalizing child porn and
overthrowing the government were also things he advocated in his writings.
Making the claim that people who see the injustice in US drug laws and call
for drug law reform are obviously drug users themselves is a non sequitor
argument.

~~~
gojomo
You are adopting a simplistic with-us-or-against-us view, and disrepesecting
Aaron's free-speech absolutism in the process. You are also assigning me
positions I haven't taken. (I made an "absurd accusation"? Where?)

Your should read more carefully. The 'manifesto' does not limit itself to out-
of-copyright works. It mentions civil disobedience, which usually means
breaking unjust laws with carefully-considered intent. He writes, "We need to
download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks."

At bits.are.notabug.com, Aaron suggests laws against crypto export, patent
infringement, copyright infringement, and even child porn sharing (but not
production) are wrong in the age of bits. He slyly uses the imperative verb
form in each header, which vaguely suggests without being explicit that he his
advocates each of these actions. The footer has a similarly sly joke of
wordplay. If you think he was saying "he supports the overthrow of the US
government", read what he actually wrote again until you get it.

These writings aren't hedged, mealy-mouthed expressions of support for a
little more open access, of only out-of-copyright or academic-oriented or
public-funded bits, within the lines of the law. They are brave and consistent
arguments for total free speech in the digital domain, without any
patent/copyright/export/obscenity restrictions. A person who wrote and
believed them _would_ redistribute in-copyright JSTOR articles; he might even
believe it was his moral duty to do so if presented the opportunity. You're
not doing Aaron's memory any favors by watering-down what he expressly
advocated.

------
adamnemecek
Not to seem callous but does the article really say anything that has not been
said before?

~~~
michaelwww
Many in the Rolling Stone audience are reading the details for the first time.

------
nnoitra
Here we go again.

------
m0th87
> FEBRUARY 28, 2013

This article is from the future.

~~~
duvet
glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. that really threw me off I had to
double check to make sure I hadn't missed some days.

