[DBrow]

“And it was all for downloading millions of academic documents that were available at the M.I.T. Library for a small fee. “

The small fee varied from 13 to 39 dollars. So he stole several tens of millions of dollars worth of someone’s property.

He felt that some types of property should not be owned, but shared with all, unfortunately the owner of the property did not agree.

[JRandomFreeper]

It's not that clear-cut, if you follow this case in depth. Many of those documents were to be released without a fee.

It was a technicallity.

/johnny

[AnotherUnixGeek]

He felt that some types of property should not be owned, but shared with all, unfortunately the owner of the property did not agree.

Two things: First, owners of property do not get to decide how vicious or unreasonable prosecutions should be. Second, the owner of this property declined to pursue a civil suit and reached an out-of-court settlement with Swartz, in which he returned the downloaded material. Federal prosecutors chose to go after him anyway.

During his short life, Swartz made more useful contributions to the nation and the world than all the lawyers in the world ever will. If nothing else, hopefully his death will help awaken more people to the problem of prosecutors gaming the legal system to ruin or end lives.

[ladyjane]

I have read, because of his Harvard affiliation, he could have downloaded them through Harvard for no fee.

The man was not downloading information for profit. He has contributed more in his short life than most of us.

Murderers and rapists walk free in a few years. He was pursued and threatened for decades in prison by a politically ambitious AG .