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

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

#301

Post by opo »

GolfPopper wrote: post #190
FireBeyond wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't arbitrage, it's looking for loopholes. Presumably your "feast or famine" business owner did the responsible thing with leveling their income, no? They didn't? Oh, why would that be the public's concern. That would level out in their feasting years, after all (assuming you're using the previous year's taxable income, or an average income over the previous three years or so). The chauffeur is subject to the…

"John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Not quite how he phrased it, but close. Original is here: https://wist.info/steinbeck-john/46582/

>...Not quite how he phrased it, but close.

The "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" quote is from Ronald Wright. The Steinbeck quote is actually very different than the Ronald Wright quote.

The actual quote is mocking wealthy armchair leftists rather than explaining why the American working class rejected socialism:

>>Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: “After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?” Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picnickers on her property. ...

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

#302

Post by necovek »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #290
necovek wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With laws, you generally want to charge and cover for the harm done, but also to disincentivise law breaking. For instance, someone might be significantly speeding for 10 years, and never hurting anyone or causing any harm (financial or otherwise). Should they pay nothing? Or should we distribute harm from all speeders (accidents, injuries and deaths) to everyone speeding? But does a fixed fee speeding ticket disince…

> Or should we distribute harm from all speeders (accidents, injuries and deaths) to everyone speeding? Yes, that one. Increasing everyone's risk is harm, sorry if I wasn't clear about that part. > But does a fixed fee speeding ticket disincentivise behaviour that is known to cause harm statistically? The line of thought here is: Does it matter? If the average speeder pays $2 of fines per $1 of harm, it's a net posit…

I am pretty sure speeding ticket fines have never been established based on economic or emotional harm (how much does 200 lives lost cost? is it their accumulated net worth? expected earnings through what would have been left of their careers? how about lost limbs, emotional damage etc? and how can you even be sure how much has speeding and not something else mainly contributed to the harm)

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

#303

Post by keeda »

_ink_ wrote: post #193
keeda wrote: 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...

Hmm, not familiar with what's happening in Germany or its copyright laws, but I do recall coming across this piece of news, where OpenAI was indeed found guilty of infringement, so I don't think Big Tech is being treated differently: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/11/chatgpt-v...

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

#304

Post by iqihs »

badlibrarian wrote: post #133

I don't like talking about this, but first hand knowledge is rarer by the day, and there are entire organizations profiting off this mythology. It's pissing me off. Aaron is not a data point to build stupid metaphors around. He was a bright and broken child. Aaron attracted influential and creepy people and was ill-equipped to handle it. He was also working through a period of sexual awakening while being used by old…

What does his sexuality have to do with any of the points raised by OP?

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

#305

Post by rireads »

trvz wrote: post #15
ck2 wrote: post #9

vaguely related I was thinking of yet another irony where the orange infant calls datacenters "beautiful" and now is arranging to give them federal land to build on to get around all the protests while at the same time calling solar and wind turbines ugly and loud and giving billions to companies already contracted to NOT build them it's all the irony of wild greed and infinite corruption, if only Aaron could have se…

It’s not even greed or corruption – it’s mental illness.

Calling it an illness takes away his responsibility while he's very much aware

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

#306

Post by khriss »

charcircuit wrote: post #278
jmward01 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this is a wealth tax. Rich get driven around and don't loose their jobs for loosing their license. Try being poor though and having this happen. Edit: should have said 'poor tax'

Being poor is no excuse for breaking the law. If you can't afford having your license revoked then don't do things that can get your license revoked.

Quick question, without looking it up, can you list the number of laws you can break which will result in your license revocation?

The law is sufficiently complex and broad that there is essentially zero chance that you are not breaking a single one each day. The rich have gotten so powerful that can literally evade the consequences forever in most cases. For the rest of us, all we can hope is to avoid the scrutiny of the law.

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

#307

Post by keeda »

diabllicseagull wrote: post #197
keeda wrote: 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 su…

But my point it is not an unjust application of the law, the law is specifically structured to treat certain behaviors as worse than others. IMO that is actually fair in theory: We do NOT want to punish people who casually pirate stuff for private use, but we probably do want to punish and deter bad actors who want to profit off of the work of others'.

Aaron Swartz's case was actually neither -- you could say he wanted to "liberate" information for the "public good" -- but unfortunately the law has no provision for that and all his actions were consistent with how the law specifies the bad actor case, which is what escalated things drastically.

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

#308

Post by tzs »

pdonis wrote: post #153
hk1337 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The information Swartz was downloading was scientific papers that we, the public, have already paid for with our tax dollars. The crime here is that the government allows JSTOR and other private companies to still hold those papers behind paywalls instead of releasing them into the public domain as they should have been.

JSTOR didn't own the copyright to any of the material, so could only serve it under the license agreements it had. Nevertheless they were able to arrange for their license to allow over 10000 schools, libraries, and other institutions to provide free access to walk-in users.

A large number of the material on JSTOR wouldn't be online at all if not for JSTOR, because they have put a lot of time and money into digitizing back issues of journals that the publishers probably would have never gotten around to.

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

#309

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

https://www.wired.com/2009/10/swartz-fbi/

It's possible the JSTOR charges were in some way motivated by the earlier PACER incident

In the JSTOR case he installed a python script on his own laptop, connected it to MIT's network and left the script running for months

In the PACER case, the computer he used did not belong to him. It was a government computer in a federal building primarily used by lawyers. He installed a perl script on the government's computer and left it running for weeks

It does not appear he ever asked anyone for permission to do this

It's surprising he avoided CFAA charges for the PACER incident

Did he exceed authorized access to a "protected computer"

For purposes of the CFAA it does not matter if the documents were public information

Perhaps there are libraries that welcome patrons installing scripts on their publicly accessible computers without permission, then leaving the scripts running on their networks, downloading 1000's of documents

Maybe MIT would not care. But there is every reason to believe the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals would care

This is not to suggest he deserved his fate, only that the PACER incident mattered. Perhaps more than the JSTOR one

The blog author does not mention it

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

#310

Post by bdhdhduuyd »

iqihs wrote: post #304
badlibrarian wrote: post #133

I don't like talking about this, but first hand knowledge is rarer by the day, and there are entire organizations profiting off this mythology. It's pissing me off. Aaron is not a data point to build stupid metaphors around. He was a bright and broken child. Aaron attracted influential and creepy people and was ill-equipped to handle it. He was also working through a period of sexual awakening while being used by old…

What does his sexuality have to do with any of the points raised by OP?

It's some context about his struggles.
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