Aaron Swartz -- R.I.P.

[Ben]

Did The Government Kill Aaron Swartz? - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyLITIuVYVQ)

[Ben]

Remembering Aaron Swartz, Honoring a Pioneer & Activist - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrcjIJgEP8)

[Ben]

Glenn Greenwald has a nice article on Aaron Swartz:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/12/aaron-swartz-heroism-suicide1

[Ben]

Why Did Aaron Swartz Face More Prison Time Than Killers? - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a91WYyhnCP0)

[trish]

I just want to know why Aaron decided it was a good idea to download every article stored in Jstor and make it available for free. Because of Jstor's services even small colleges can afford access to a vast store of professional journals that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Just about every college and university in the world takes advantage of the service and consequently students and faculty have access to the world's most recent store of scientific knowledge.

[broncofan]

I've used jstor and also been blocked by it when I wasn't a member and wanted to see something. The truth is the articles are copyrighted by the law journals and other scholarly publications jstor gets them from and so I'm sure there's an arrangement in place to benefit all to the extent they've bargained for. He sounds like a talented programmer but I think downloading the material was a very bad idea on his part. Of course the punishment proposed for him was excessive.

That said, he wrote some very interesting things about depression, which I've taken down. They're linked in the Glenn Greenwald article.