Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Compare their operating budget with Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenburg has two part-time employees. http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Project_Gutenberg_Li...
Well, there you go.
JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
61–69 of 69 posts
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Do you want them shut down or something? They can't legally do that Why not? And more importantly, why couldn't "putting themselves out of business" be their goal? Most of us have no problem if on-line solutions disrupt private sector business. But we get all gooey and stupid when it's a not-for-profit, like they get a pass because they're supposedly doing good. Frankly, if you can't service the needs of society, th…
They have to pay license fees to the publishers. That's where most of the money is going.
That and Manhattan wages for their staff.
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#63For those unable to access their statement due to the traffic load: ------ Aaron Swartz We are deeply saddened to hear the news about Aaron Swartz. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Aaron’s family, friends, and everyone who loved, knew, and admired him. He was a truly gifted person who made important contributions to the development of the internet and the web from which we all benefit. We have had inquiries abo…
Good call
A truly good call would at least be sincere in an acknowledgement of fault. This call sounds a bit hypocritical. They did drop their "civil case," but they can hardly be said to have made any serious effort to stop the arrogant government prosecutors who, in effect, went on to murder Aaron. The irresponsible academics who stood around shrugging their shoulders in indifference, as well as the various media outlets that casually reported on Aaron's arrest, should think carefully about the lack of proportion in the American criminal justice system, and the devastating impact it can have on real lives.
Authorities in New York have undertaken a similarly disproportionate assault on Internet freedom and academic whistle-blowing, arresting and prosecuting a blogger who sent out “Gmail confessions” in which a well-known New York University department chairman appeared to be eccentrically accusing himself of plagiarism. And again, there appears to be nothing but silence from the relevant communities. For further information on the case, see:
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#64In the Swartz case, I have to say that JSTOR acted professionally and did the right thing. They saw someone stealing their data. They reached out to the authorities to help stop the theft. Swartz returned the data, and JSTOR agreed not to pursue (civil) legal action against him. It's unfortunate that the US government couldn't match JSTOR's level of reasonableness. Yes, Swartz did something illegal, but the time (~35…
> Swartz returned the data This... sounds super fishy.
Yeah, I wonder what that even means?
You can't "return" data. You can either delete the data, or hand over the media that it's encoded upon.
It reminds me a bit of David Thorne's famous "spider" email exchange http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html (fourth email)
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#65"To that end, Aaron returned the data he had in his possession and JSTOR settled any civil claims we might have had against him in June 2011." Reminds me of that spider drawing comic [0]. [0] http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html
Hahaha okay, I hadn't read this yet. Glad I wasn't the only one who was reminded of it :)
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously. The use of the word "returned" reeks of the same technological backwardness that has hobbled the music industry. Just as it is nonsensical to say that copying files constitutes "stealing", it is nonsensical to say that one can "return" copied files. You can delete them, and that's about it. However, I don't think JSTOR is technologically backwards, but their use of that word reveals a very measured, legali…
This was exactly my thought. The use of "returned" reveals a clinging to a lie that's still lurking in the background.
I've been assuming it meant something along the lines of "we made him hand over some of his gear as an early punishment". Seems to be a common thing to do in nearly all cases of (alleged) "cyber" crimes. It's nothing to do with "returning data" of course.
An old episode of Friends really nailed the concept: "it's like trying to take the urine out of a pool".
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I want a world where the scientific enterprise grows beyond academia. I want a world where the collective intelligence of humanity can be brought to bear on humanity's most important problems. I want a world where the conversation of science is conducted in indexible, searchable, linkable, accessible, and modifiable public media. As lovely of an idea as that is, someone has to write the backend, design the front-end…
> As lovely of an idea as that is, someone has to write the backend, design the front-end, scan tens of thousands of documents and provide full-text search for them. I volunteer, where do I sign up?
Silly man. You can't just do anything you like, for free! ;-)
Count me in, though (given that it'll actually be about opening access to things that weren't open before).
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wasn't the whole thing that they allowed free unrestricted access to the JSTOR database from MIT IP addresses? All Aaron Swartz did was jack into an Ethernet port in a closet that was unlocked in an MIT building, and get an IP address from an unsecured network at MIT, and then wrote some Python scripts to work as a web robot and pull down articles. The web robot did the same thing as any user at MIT could do, read an…
>So yes it is possible to allow free, unrestricted access, JSTOR just decides to only do that to certain IP ranges. If they allowed that with everyone, Aaron wouldn't have to jack his laptop into an unused open closet to pull articles. I'm not talking about hosting or downloading. I'm talking about the digitization of documents and to pay the salaries of their ~200 staff.
Only if you can justify why you need ~200 staff in the digital age when most if not all research papers are made in electronic format and don't need to be digitized.
What do they do as well, watch Youtube videos most of the time and then scan in those rare research papers that are submitted in hardcopy format? The 1% of submissions that are actually in hardcopy and not RTF, DOC, PDF, ePub, Mobi ect formats?
Re: JSTOR Statement on Aaron Swartz
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
>So yes it is possible to allow free, unrestricted access, JSTOR just decides to only do that to certain IP ranges. If they allowed that with everyone, Aaron wouldn't have to jack his laptop into an unused open closet to pull articles. I'm not talking about hosting or downloading. I'm talking about the digitization of documents and to pay the salaries of their ~200 staff.
~200 staff? Sounds like an awful lot. And I imagine the front end and backed are kinda done now so after a couple of devs maintaining the system, a sys admin or two, some testers, hr and ceo that leaves ~190 scanning in the documents. Or am I oversimplifying this?
Sort of like Wal-Mart having 300 employees per store and only two of them on checkout lines.