If you spent thousands of dollars in gear and software, and hundreds of hours more in time, composing, writing, recording, mixing, mastering a song.... then offer that song for sale, should you be fairly compensated for all your work? Yes? No?
On the other hand, if someone copied that same song you did and gave it away freely to others (without your permission), can that person claim you didn't really lose anything... since you still have your song? That he didn't "steal" your song, he only made copies, not making money off it, and giving it away to others because he believes music should be free.
It's sad he killed himself, but I think he went about this whole JSTOR caper in the wrong way.
Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) didn't go to all the other encyclopedia companies and stole their information, and give it away to the masses because he believes in free information... no, he started his own Wikipedia foundation.
Aaron Swartz could have done the same thing for academic journals... but nooooo... he went about it the wrong way.