Aaron Swartz sucide

@vasco
You have an important point. As the writer/composer of the music YOU should be compensated. Agree completely but...

I know that most of the money I pay - price in NL is €10~30 for a CD (bought hundreds of them) is max 20 cents for the cd + box + booklet production price, and about 1 Euro per CD for recording (estimation). From the 10 Euro I think the artist gets 1 Euro and the rest (80%) goes to the music industry. Is that fair compensation?

When artist make CD's themselves and sell them at a performance they get "100%" of the money, I think that is a fair deal.

another view on this I heard is that musicians have the option to sell their music digitally or by CD or .... There is no-one that says they have to.
So if they do, they know what 'system' they choose. And I think most musician make more money with live acts than with CD/downloaded(payed) music.

That said, it is not an argument for illegal downloading.

You might want to read this http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartzs-crime/ and then consider again the "theft" theory.

I agree with you vasquo, but that's not what happened with Swartz. He grabbed documents that were part of a repository that was totally open within the campus. Most of the documents were funded by public money for research and had been published and sold already. They were taken from an archive. The value of the archive is not so much in its documents; the value is in the search capabilities that JSTOR provided in addition to the documents. It's of great value to do a text search among tons of documents to find what you need, but that isn't what Swartz downloaded.

He took what was freely available on the network to anyone at MIT.

It was highly notable that JSTOR made a deal with him and agreed to drop it, then after (I think it was a month later) it should have been settled, the 'authorities' came in and started inventing charges.

It's sort of like someone taking the CD you describe, you notice it and tell them to give it back, they do, then the cops come, lock them up, and throw away the key. The original argument was settled, but the government has to get into it and escalate it beyond reason.

I see... I've read a few articles these past few days that says he took from a subscription service ($50K a year?) or something... there seems be a lot of news article out there that are misleading.

but it looks like he just used "curl" to download free files.

There's a petition going on to oust the government prosecutor in this case... he took it too far. He wasn't trying to seek justice, he's probably trying to make a name for himself... add a notch to his political belt, bragging rights. I've seen murderers/rapists get away with lighter punishment than what he's trying to throw on Aaron.

If however, I were to somehow make a copy of all your cattle, sheep or other property - while you still retained your original - what have you lost?

easy, the value of cattle goes down and you share in my profit while contributing none of the work

I, out of all people am grey when it comes to this stuff, but I never will buy into this copy is not theft idea.

You take something of commercial value, the product is not the box or the 5 cent CD or the shrinkwrap it all comes in.

Honour to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honour to maid Marian,
And to all the Sherwood-clan!
Though their days have hurried by
Let us two a burden try.

  • John Keats

If the nature of the product is that it is infinitely copy-able surely there is nothing artificial in increasing supply through that process.

Cattle are also infinitely copy-able, aren't they?
The scale and energy input are different, but it's actually a pretty good analogy, IMO.

AWOL:

If the nature of the product is that it is infinitely copy-able surely there is nothing artificial in increasing supply through that process.

Cattle are also infinitely copy-able, aren't they?
The scale and energy input are different, but it's actually a pretty good analogy, IMO.

mm yeah. They are not instantly copy-able though that isn't one of the property's of a cow. If it was it would be a normal part of farming and the economic model around farms would be different.

kf2qd:
The bigger problem is that he seemed to think that it was his right (or obligation) to free other peoples ideas. It is what is known as theft if I choose to free your cattle or sheep or other property. If you come up with an idea should I have the right to publish it and benefit from it without your permission? He, like the Occupy Wall Street folk seemed to think that because he wants it a certain way, then all others should submit to his "superior" ideas.

My personal thought is that this is the end result of a spoiled life that was not taught right from wrong, or respect for others. He broke the law, stole other peoples property and could not accept that he was not the supreme abitter in this situation.

The game wasn't being played by his rules so he took his ball and went home. The ultimate act of a selfish individual.

As part of a society, I either have to work within that societies means for change of be prepared to deal with the results of my refusal to conform.

Its sad to see how this case is getting whitewashed.

The documents he "stole" are in the public domain. His only issues were with MIT (unauthorized access to a janitor's closet), and JSTOR (potential TOS violation, which they admitted did not exist). The feds should not have been involved at all. He shouldn't have been facing 35 years for computer fraud and hacking charges, for making an automated script that simply downloaded freely available files. He broke no encryption, used no exploits, had legitimate access, and did not distribute anything that was not in the public domain. The script simply went to the website and issued a download request, the same as a person would. This is yet another case of a government prosecutor trying to make a name for themselves by saving us from the evil "hackers".

Both JSTOR and MIT dropped their charges. Both of them realized that their TOS agreements failed to protect them from this type of case. The government continued their attack in an attempt to make an example of him.

The newsmedia trying to paint him as some spoiled brat anti-government type makes me sick.

The documents he "stole" are in the public domain.

What's in the "public domain" is quite subjective: if the "spread the wealth" folks have their way, what's theirs is theirs and what's yours is theirs too.

What's in the "public domain" is quite subjective:

No it is not. The authors were payed by your tax dollar, therefore you have a right to see them.

They got no extra payment for writing the stuff, they would have got payed the same if they never produced any papers.
Then this "publishing house" grabs the "rights" to the contents and do not pay the authors.
If any theft has taken place it is by the publishers.

It is a totally different situation to someone distributing another persons music which I am dead against.

Be fair Grumpy_Mike, they did index them and setup a database for full text searches. However, it doesn't give them exclusive rights to the documents themselves since they are public, and that is what Swartz downloaded. He didn't use their search to find them, he searched the old fashioned way.

He did nothing illegal in my opinion, and the plaintiffs withdrew complaints after they had looked into it.

He did nothing illegal in my opinion,

That's why things like this should be decided by a court, not by you, or me, or Mr. Swartz.

and the plaintiffs withdrew complaints after they had looked into it.

The fact that the plaintiffs withdrew their complaints shouldn't be sufficient to prove one's innocence. Lots of domestic abuse cases should be sufficient in convincing anyone of that.

It wasn't suicide!

Visionary internet activist Aaron Swartz found dead; was this brilliant internet revolutionary 'taken out?' - NaturalNews.com

It shows you that for every right-wing nutjob, there is a left-wing nutjob.

He did nothing illegal in my opinion,

That's why things like this should be decided by a court, not by you, or me, or Mr. Swartz.

and the plaintiffs withdrew complaints after they had looked into it.

The fact that the plaintiffs withdrew their complaints shouldn't be sufficient to prove one's innocence. Lots of domestic abuse cases should be sufficient in convincing anyone of that.

Regarding courts, they cost a LOT of money. Prosecutors often ruin people and their entire extended family losing a case by simply running up the costs. The power of a prosecutor's office is incredible and has extremely deep pockets. When no one was hurt and the plaintiffs have removed their complaint, leave it the heck alone

dhenry, your second sentence should tell a whole lot of people how you think. Coffin v. United States way back in the late 19th century set the stage in the U.S. and it has been reinforced thousands of times. It's even explicitly stated in many country's constitutions.

When no one was hurt and the plaintiffs have removed their complaint, leave it the heck alone

Then it is upon Mr. Schwartz and his defense to prove that no one was hurt.

dhenry, your second sentence should tell a whole lot of people how you think. Coffin v. United States way back in the late 19th century set the stage in the U.S. and it has been reinforced thousands of times. It's even explicitly stated in many country's constitutions.

I am not really sure how Coffin vs. US is connected to your notion that the plaintiffs' dropping the complaints proved one's innocence.

You did it again, this time in the first sentence.

You did it again

I am not sure what "it" you are referring to.

I actually agree with your statement that if no one is hurt, we should leave it alone.

But to satisfy that condition (or assumption) that no one is hurt, Schwartz and his team will have to prove that no one is hurt. If he cannot, he will have to go to the court and let his peers judge his innocence (or lack of).

That, in case you didn't realize, has no thing to do with presumption of innocence.

It has everything to do with presumption of innocence; you probably don't understand what that actually means.