Alfredo Lopez wrote an incredulous piece for Counterpunch (who I must admit have run some very questionable articles since the passing of Alexander Cockburn). In this piece he tried to legitimize the theft of JStore material as "doing a public good".
Swartz was a 26-year-old programmer and Internet activist whose accomplishments would be stellar for a person three times his age. He wrote many programs that are now used routinely on the Internet and its servers, he helped build resource websites to gather and provide those kinds of resources to people who needed them and he was active in organizing around issues of freedom and access. In the techie universe, he was a blazing super-star.
Hey guess what? We appreciate that. Glad he was willing to do it.
Like every committed progressive techie, Aaron Swartz believed that information should be accessible to everyone and, over the years, he campaigned against information hoarding and restriction and took concrete actions that dramatized that important issue.
Hmmm, I'm going to pass on judging on what exactly makes for a "committed progressive techie" but I will say that if one believes that information should be accessible to everyone, then
do feel
FREE to give away all the information you have created and amassed to the public. Nobody is stopping you. What you do NOT have the right to do is take someone
elses information and "free" it without their permission.
One day he walked into a server room at MIT (to which he had full, legal access) and set up a small device that captured files from a server belonging to JSTOR, a private company that was selling downloadable scholarly papers and materials for a dime a page.
Not that I know the exact details of the events but since I work in information systems I can say with certainty that unless on is in fact employed by the university and specifically the information systems staff you do NOT have a legal right to enter an equipment closet. NOR do you (a student or faculty member) have the right to connect a random device in said closet for the purposes of intercepting network traffic. I assure you that you will be expelled and referred for criminal prosecution. Trust me on this one.
(This, by the way, is not money that goes to the actual creators of the materials in question. It goes to JSTOR and MIT. For the most part, the copyright laws are being used to enrich corporations, not creators, as publishers and employers routinely require the creators, on an entortionate take-it-or-leave-it basis, to sign over their control of copyright when they sign a publishing contract or an employment contract.)
Here is Alfredo's real meat. He thinks that "corporations" ought not be paid. That's his business to think so, but I'm certain the people who work for JSTore, including those persons who maintain the servers, would very much like to be
compensated for their efforts. Perhaps Alfredo thinks that persons such as myself should simply work for free. I'm certain Alfredo would pay my bills and pay for my retirement.
Aaron downloaded everything without paying a penny, thereby violating JSTOR’s “terms of service” (the rules governing your interaction with the server). People at MIT can download stuff off that server for free but they can’t download it to redistribute it, and so MIT’s administration turned Aaron into the Feds, claiming that’s what he was going to do.
I'm not entirely sure what the financial arrangement is between JSTORE and MIT. I'm almost certain that such access is not "free". There is nothing "free". Servers are not free. Internet connections are not "free". Staff do not work for "free". There are real costs associated with a JSTore and someone, somewhere is paying for it. In the case of public institutions it is likely the taxpayer. It may be some corporation. Who knows. But I assure Mr. Alfredo that JSTore is not "free".
Let me inform Mr. Alfredo that any member of the public can enter a library, including university libraries and for no fee (at the libraries I have seen) get access to each and every online database at no cost
to them. The user will find professional librarians willing to assist them. They will find student technology workers, paid by taxpayers, tuition and fees, to assist them in using the computers. If they download a document from JSTore or any other publication, they can put it in cloud storage and read it on any device they wish.
If they are doing research they can quote quite liberally from the accessed text, and provide a citation whereby other interested parties can go and find the article
for themselves
For themselves is what this comes down to. Alfredo and his ilk want lazy people to be able to have shit delivered to them on a platter without effort. They do not want anyone to profit from their efforts whether it be the originators of information or providers of conduits to it.
One doesn't have to agree with the extent to which MIT and the government went after Aaron Swartz. But not agreeing with it does not mean that one has to make inaccurate statements about the legality of Swartz's actions or the actual nature of the information which he was allegedly "liberating".
And if you want information and don't want to pay for it, visit a library.
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