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When corporations scrape academic papers, it's justified. When individuals do it, it's inexcusable. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by TheImpressiveX@lemmy.ml to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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[-] doctortran@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Can we be honest about this, please?

Aaron Swartz went into a secure networking closet and left a computer there to covertly pull data from the server over many days without permission from anyone, which is absolutely not the same thing as scraping public data from the internet.

He was a hero that didn't deserve what happened, but it's patently dishonest to ignore that he was effectively breaking and entering, plus installing a data harvesting device in the server room, which any organization in the world would rightfully identity as hostile behavior. Even your local library would call the cops if you tried to do that.

[-] TheDoctor@hexbear.net 64 points 1 month ago

You left out the part where, instead of telling him to knock it off as soon as they learned about it and disciplining him internally as a student, the school contacted law enforcement and allowed him to continue doing it so they could prosecute him harder make an example out of him. You’d think if he was as big of a threat as you’re implying, they would stop what he was doing ASAP. And if you’re going to be pedantic about leaving out details, maybe tell the whole thing. Maybe it’s not “honest” enough if we haven’t posted the full text of a documentary in a comment. That’s clearly your call.

[-] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 10 points 1 month ago

After state prosecutors dropped their charges, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines.

Another bootlicker spotted.