Posted on 01/13/2013 5:13:19 PM PST by libstripper
At the time of his suicide, Aaron Swartz was preparing for a crucial hearing in his federal criminal case, likely his best chance to thwart federal prosecutors who had developed solid evidence against the Internet activist who was facing an April trial on a 13-count felony indictment.
The 26-year-old Swartz, who killed himself Friday in his Brooklyn apartment, was scheduled for a January 25 evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. Lawyers for Swartz were seeking to suppress material gathered in connection with Swartz’s breach of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer network.
The January 2011 incursion netted Swartz, a Reddit cofounder who also helped develop the RSS standard, millions of scholarly papers from the JSTOR archive. He was planning to make the material public at no cost.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesmokinggun.com ...
Just because a thief steals something that you also think ought to be free, doesn’t mean he’s on your side, even if you happen to be both right in this particular case. We are not discussing intellectual property rights, we are discussing the man’s political views, which we understand (perhaps incorrectly) to have been radically Left. Read his blog which is still up. Here’s a lovely piece on Bush: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001119
Even funnier to read self righteous comments from those who think they know everything about a poster based upon the starting date for posting. I know it seems hard to believe but some folks lurked for a very long time before joining. Jim was always very well known in my mom’s town.
Why don’t you give us all a synopsis of the WP/LAT case against FR, clownboy, then compare it with your comments about Aaron Swartz?
Jim Robinson did NOT commit suicide to avoid prosecution or a court case....end of story
In other words, you CAN’T give us a synopsis of the WP/LAT case against FR.
‘Nuff said.
Not ‘nuff said.
People on Free Republic were posting articles from various newspapers. They were posting entire articles as I recall not just short excerpts or intros. The Washington Post and the LA Times sued under fair use and copy right law violation. free Republic lost.
And your point is exactly what???
I guess you forgot about the part where the Clinton White House enjoined the WP & LAT to initiate the lawsuit, then directed it to a Clinton-appointed federal judge, in order to make the case come out as they desired.
Kind of like what happened to this kid Aaron...
Well, to be entirely accurate, Clinton's pet federal judge CRAFTED the fair use & copyright "decision" to suit the goals of the Clinton White House.
As we know, Bill Clinton has enormous respect for the rule of law and for the authority of federal judges, which is why he perjured himself, obstructed justice and tampered with witnesses, and basically spit in the eye of the federal judge at his deposition.
The system slapped him down like it slapped down Jon Corzine. **snicker**
And Jim did not off himself as a solution.
In other words, you COULDN’T give us a synopsis of the WP/LAT case against FR, and I had to explain it to you.
Freaking n00b.
And you also did not contest the over-reach accusations in both cases, or the rigged “charges”.
BTW - the circumstances of the targets in the two cases were entirely different, though you keep trying to equate them. I don’t believe that Jim faced federal prison in the WP/LAT case, though I’m sure the Clinton White House would have loved it as payment for the mark Jim left on The Big He’s tiny weenie.
They were going to throw the kid into PMITA federal prison as a sex toy, and probably told him so, and laughed about it.
It’s pretty much agreed that the MA federal persecutor is now considered pond scum, and third-railed her own career. There are a LOT of people who wouldn’t p*ss on her to save her life if she was on fire.
How much was JSTOR charging and how much money did it cost to publish the content?
Go back to the time before the internet. Did hard copies of journals cost money or did taxpayers just get a copy for free???
You did not explain it to me my second post to you gave you the thumbnail of the case. The DIFFERENCE here in the case STARTS with the fact that Free Republic had users posting information from public newspapers ( at the time there were not subscription requirements for those papers). This stupid young man ENTERED the MIT computer areas and INSTALLED hardware to steal information that exists in subscription journals that are used in various research. He entered illegally on multiple occasions.
These cases have little tyo nothing in common so get off you high horse.
my comments about his cowardly act stand
...His [Swartz] contention was that JSTOR collected money for access to academic journal content, but did not pay the authors or copyright holders, and made it prohibitively expensive for millions of potential readers to access results of publicly financed research. JSTOR is a "non-profit" corporation...
...Most of my readers will know that I am no opponent of the legitimate copyright ownership of intellectual property. I make my living off sales or donations for access to my intellectual property. Authors, artists, composers, inventors, and other intellectual property creators have moral and ethical rights to their creations, and it is in the interest of society to protect that interest. This was considered worth its own clause in the Constitution of 1787. On the other hand, taxpayers and others who support public institutions and research have some rights too: particularly when the actual creator of the intellectual property are not being compensated, and in fact are often losing deserved esteem from citation of their works and general promulgation of their papers. Writers write to be read. Samuel Johnson observed that no man but a blockhead ever wrote for anything except money, but that isn’t quite true. Some do write to be read, and in the case of scientific research, widespread promulgation is essential to the scientific process.
It is not at all clear that the JSTOR monopoly is the best way to achieve the distribution of scientific and other academic research efforts. Perhaps it is, but I have not seen the case made. At the very least they might publish the salaries and perks of the executives and directors of JSTOR and ITHAKA. Indeed, one wonders why they do not, since they are quite proud of being non-profit corporations...
"my comments about his cowardly act stand"
Just another supporter of the American Police State, and Fascist Cronyism...
bleeeech
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