Just in case you missed this, a 24-year-old programmer at MIT is facing 35 years of prison
for illegally downloading a large number of papers from JSTOR.
In a statement bordering on ridiculous, JSTOR confirmed that it had "secured the
digital content" Mr. Swartz allegedly stole.
Hopefully this will give people a sense of how bad things are in 2011 regarding access to
publicly funded research. I am really happy that we are putting open access and open data
among our priorities at WMF and doing our bit to help fix this broken system.
Dario
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Internet Activist Charged in M.I.T. Data Theft
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-charged-with-dat…
2:19 p.m. | Updated Added links to documents and comment from United
States Attorney’s office in Boston.
2:48 p.m. | Updated Changed headline and post to remove reference to
Mr. Swartz being a co-founder of Reddit, as this is disputed. Added
comment from Demand Progress.
4:11 p.m. | Updated Corrected reference to timing of indictment.
Aaron Swartz, a 24-year-old programmer and online political activist,
has been indicted in Boston on charges that he stole more than four
million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
JSTOR, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. (Read
the full indictment below.)
Mr. Swartz was indicted last Thursday by the United States Attorney
for the District of Massachusetts, Carmen M. Ortiz, and the indictment
was unsealed Tuesday. The charges could result in up to 35 years in
prison and a $1 million fine.
In a press release, Ms. Ortiz’s office said that Mr. Swartz broke into
a restricted area of M.I.T. and entered a computer wiring closet. Mr.
Swartz apparently then accessed the M.I.T. computer network and took
millions of documents from JSTOR.
Mr. Swartz, a well-known figure in Internet academic circles, created
a site called Infogami that later merged with the social news site
Reddit. He is also a founder and director of the nonprofit group
Demand Progress, which calls itself a political action group hoping to
change public policy that relates to the Internet.
In 2009 Mr. Swartz downloaded 19 million pages of federal court
documents from a government database system, acting on the belief that
they should be made available free.
Demand Progress said on its site that it appeared Mr. Swartz was
“being charged with allegedly downloading too many scholarly journal
articles from the Web.” It quoted the group’s executive director,
David Segal, as saying, “It’s like trying to put someone in jail for
allegedly checking too many books out of the library.”
The charges filed against Mr. Swartz include wire fraud, computer
fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer and criminal
forfeiture.
“Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar,
and whether you take documents, data or dollars,” said Ms. Ortiz in
the press release.
The United States Attorney’s office in Boston said Mr. Swartz
“surrendered today, was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Boston
this morning and pled not guilty to all counts. He was released on
$100,000 unsecured bond. His next court date is September 9, 2011 for
a status conference.”
Mr. Swartz could not immediately be reached for comment.