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Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

blog.curiousquail.com

191–200 of 427 posts

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#191
post #183
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe the real issue is selective outrage about legal injustice." The real issue is selective enforcement of the law. If it applied equally to everyone, then more people would be outraged as it affected them.

[flagged]

>How would it help the world for Aaron Swartz to download 3.5 million research and primary source PDFs

Knowledge is power.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> trespassed into a room A room with an unlocked and unmarked door, off of a hallway that was open to the general public. An INCREDIBLY tame act compared to other unprosecuted trespasses normalized and celebrated at https://hacks.mit.edu/ . > rotated his MAC address Not a crime; in fact now a widespread and default practice for consumer Wi-Fi/Bluetooth devices.

Were those hackers MIT students? Was Aaron?

Both Aaron and "those hackers" were MIT community members.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#193
post #181

A key aspect folks should understand about US Copyright Law is that it much more severely penalizes infringement with distributing, or an intent to distribute, unauthorized copies than to just consume privately. Distributing unauthorized copies is a federal crime (which can escalate to a felony based on various factors) whereas doing whatever for private use is usually a much milder civil liability. If you look at al…

A German publisher is currently sueing OpenAI, because they think it is distributing unauthorized copies of its work. [1] It's in German, but I think the example picture speaks for itself. So essentially big tech is doing exactly what the torrenters were persecuted for. I still think big tech will be treated differently.

[1] - https://www.heise.de/news/Rechtsverletzende-Kopien-vom-NEINh...

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to say things like that you have to give examples.

You just created a large, TBTF corp's veto. Pass a law or have a law passed a corp TBTF doesn't want? Break it and force the Government's hand to strike it down.

Ideally what would happen is the corporation starts having enforcement action against it and then its leadership is forced out to rescue said corporation from failing.

This certainly seems better than just making TBTF (which I assume means too big to fail) entities be above the law.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#196
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information should be free.

Agreed, to an extent, but that doesn't mean you can breach any barrier someone has in place preventing access, take it, and make it publicly available.

Surely it depends on the specific information in question?

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#197
post #181

A key aspect folks should understand about US Copyright Law is that it much more severely penalizes infringement with distributing, or an intent to distribute, unauthorized copies than to just consume privately. Distributing unauthorized copies is a federal crime (which can escalate to a felony based on various factors) whereas doing whatever for private use is usually a much milder civil liability. If you look at al…

arguing that the application of the law was as expected to people who point out how unjust the expected application of the law is is pointless.

ideally, we would see a stronger legal reaction to the biggest IP heist in history but clearly it's not what's happening. it's only natural for people to criticize the current system until a change for the better materializes, while doing so draw attention to extreme cases such as Aaron's.

Re: Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

#200
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe the real issue is selective outrage about legal injustice." The real issue is selective enforcement of the law. If it applied equally to everyone, then more people would be outraged as it affected them.

> If it applied equally to everyone, then more people would be outraged as it affected them. In order to do this you need to have laws that are designed to be reasonable for people to actually follow instead of laws that are designed to allow prosecutors to find a violation whenever they want to. Actually enforcing them would create pressure to do that, but it would also create pressure to go back to selective enforc…

I think part of the balance is that law requires discretion because humans are not good at making deny lists which the law boils down to.
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