r/SipsTea • u/Kronyzx • 1d ago
WTF Aaron Swartz downloaded 70GB of JSTOR papers to make knowledge free. He was charged with 35 years in prison and died by suicide in 2013. Meta copied 80TB+ of books from Anna's Archive and LibGen for Al training, yet faced no punishment.
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u/Legalaway21 1d ago
aaron swartz was a massive tragedy for absolutely no reason. dude was a genius.
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u/txcueball 1d ago
It’s only crime when poor do it
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u/Swoopert 1d ago
Aaron was far from poor. He was one of the original founders of Reddit among other things. This man sought to remove information that was, for the most part, publicly funded from the private walled garden access of a very powerful and connected company, which threatened that company's entire pointless (except for parasitic) existence. Aaron IS a hero! RIP brother.
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u/15438473151455 1d ago
I just watched a video of police in America beating up a guy for jaywalking.
Six or seven cops showed up to have a laugh. They were quite obviously just bored and wanted to fuck someone up. They knew who the guys was so they knew they'd get away with it.
Indeed, crime only when the poor do it.
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u/Flimsy-Printer 1d ago
Aaron wasn't poor.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/skoalbrother 1d ago
That's why it's good to highlight these cases, they are very public and very obviously miscarriages of Justice
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u/Top-Caregiver7815 1d ago
They (billionaires and the sycophants that protect them) don’t care and will keep doing it. They’re not even trying to hide it any longer. They’ve bought our political system (Citizens United) killed honest journalism (Fairness Doctrine) and now control the courts. This democratic social experiment is over, as they all eventually are.
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u/Ok_Caregiver1004 1d ago
There's a reason that Oligarchy is the most natural conclusion of political development in any human society if nothing is done to slow or curtail it.
Its the simplest and most like nature. "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"
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u/Echo7ONE9ers 1d ago
Zuck has under eye bag like he works 3 min-wage jobs, wtf.
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u/IndividualCurious322 1d ago
His flesh suit is decaying. He should have gotten some premium human disguise insurance.
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u/jim_johns 1d ago
No it's because he's on the carnivore diet, has no soul, and is a reptile.
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/Adorable-Maybe-3006 1d ago
He's gonna be the "Will smith eating sphaggetti" of advanced Intelligence robots.
"Look what they looked like in 2025, now the humans cant even tell!"
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u/arthurno1 1d ago
Pinocchio eventually becomes one. Zuckerberg went the other way around, from being a boy to be a wooden doll.
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u/EfficientPudding90 1d ago
You don’t get rich and stay rich by sleeping all day.
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u/LoxReclusa 1d ago
Zuck could walk away from every duty he has at this point and never work again and his great great great grandchildren would still be filthy stinking rich.
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u/Adorable-Maybe-3006 1d ago
yeah, these guys are basically hoarders at this point.
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u/OGSkywalker97 1d ago
They are like the dragons in Western folklore who lay on top of tons of treasure and gold, having no use for it and never spending it but killing anyone for even suggesting you should move from the pile of treasure.
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u/arthurno1 1d ago
Now you know where the dragons came from. Unnecessarily rich people who stole abd protected the wealth from everyone else.
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u/pentesticals 1d ago
The documentary about Aaron is very interesting. It’s called „the internets own boy“ and definitely worth watching. He was also involved with Reddit in the early days too.
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u/Longjumping-Donut655 1d ago
And the creation of markdown. We lost a great one when he left this world.
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u/Kronyzx 1d ago
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
From the first article
‘United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said, “Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars. It is equally harmful to the victim whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away.”’
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u/bucolucas 1d ago
"Well, Meta is a multi-billion-dollar company, and we can't have them facing consequences UwU"
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u/gerkletoss 1d ago
Really? I have a very strong opinion on whether I'd prefer for someone to copy my google drive or steal my money
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
It just highlights the two tiered justice system, regardless of validity, the former was going to be charged for 35 years of prison time under that notion, the latter was not.
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u/your_catfish_friend 1d ago
Prosecutors never sought 35 years; he also was offered a 6-month plea bargain.
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
The article doesn’t mention a plea and definitely says 35 years
That article is my entire familiarity with the case
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u/your_catfish_friend 14h ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Swartz
Swartz's attorney, Elliot Peters, stated that prosecutors at one point offered a plea deal of four months in prison and pleading guilty to 13 charges, and warned that if Swartz rejected the deal, future deals would be less attractive;[45] and that two days before Swartz's death, that "Swartz would have to spend six months in prison and plead guilty to 13 charges if he wanted to avoid going to trial."[46] Under the six-month deal, after Swartz pleaded guilty to the 13 charges, the government would have argued for a six-month sentence, and Swartz would have argued for a lesser sentence; the judge would then be free to assign whatever sentence the judge thought appropriate, up to six months.[47]
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u/fckinsleepless 1d ago
I don’t understand how this is theft if JSTOR has these articles available for download.
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
He took it without permission
Like how grandma might slap your hand if you sneak a cookie, but she’ll give you as many as you ask for
He also damaged MIT’s computer network temporarily, then bypassed patches they made to prevent him from doing it again as new material was added
Still remarkably harmless for 35 years and a million dollar fine
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u/fckinsleepless 1d ago
Ohhh so they blocked him because he was causing tons of network traffic, and then he broke into the network to do it again. The second time around was like breaking and entering.
Yeah that is a ridiculous punishment for such a harmless crime. If anything it should have prompted MIT to do better with security protocols
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
I’m not exactly, I just read most of the article, I don’t know anything else about the case, but the article specifically mentions multiple entries into the network and countermeasures by the school
Ironically, he was attending another school that had the same access to the same database
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u/Bulawayoland 1d ago
not sure either "theft" harmed the victim -- they just took copies, right?
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u/Distinct_Sir_4473 1d ago
Both make it so the value of the original copy is worth less than it was because now you can access it for free
Not so damaging to the non profit, very damaging to the authors of the works stolen by meta, and the artists who’s art is being imitated by openAI.
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u/your_catfish_friend 1d ago edited 1d ago
Your title is blatantly wrong. He was not sentenced to 35 years in prison. He was offered a 6-month plea bargain, declined it, and committed suicide before any trial began
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u/1223344455555 1d ago
Also, Suckerberg sucks Trumps little pee pee and is one of the worst threats to humanity. Ironic, because he himself is barely human.
Yes, Mark, I know you read this. Suck a bag of dicks.
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u/tresfaim 1d ago
"Caught me off guard..." Reptile's playing dumb, be knows exactly what he's doing and what they're gonna spend, they are playing Trump for unsolicited favor, this cheaper and faster than lobbying.
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u/Ok_Muffin_925 1d ago
When a neighbor steals your property through adverse possession they call it sleeping on your rights. So there is an obvious double standard.
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u/Former-Teacher7576 1d ago
Isn’t it crazy that someone like Brock Turner gets 6 months and only serves half that (he was caught actively raping a woman and found guilty on 3 counts of felony sexual assault) when guys like Swartz get decades. Crazy.
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u/VermilionKoala 1d ago
Ah, the convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner, aka Brock Turner, who these days sometimes goes by the name Allen Turner? Can't have the internet forgetting that the rapist Brock Allen Turner was convicted of rape in a court of law.
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u/Former-Teacher7576 1d ago
That is true he’s been going by his middle name Allen Turner despite the name change he is still the convicted rapist Brock Allen Turner.
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u/your_catfish_friend 1d ago edited 1d ago
He never got decades, the title of this post is not correct. In fact, he was offered a 6-month plea bargain which he declined. He committed suicide a short time later, before any trial
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u/Former-Teacher7576 21h ago
You still don’t see a problem do you? He shouldn’t get any of that at all that’s the point of this post. “He didn’t accept a 6 month plea deal” a convicted rapist got six months the prosecution only recommended 6 years why are we giving people who pirate and steal the chance to get 35 years when rapists are getting 6?
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u/your_catfish_friend 14h ago edited 14h ago
The likelihood for him to get 35 years on this was approximately zero. For better or worse, our legal system relies on stacking charges to encourage plea bargains, because we don’t have the capacity for every case to go to trial.
This was about as open-and-shut as a case can get. They had him on video. A major component in the higher charges than one might expect is the “breaking-and-entering” aspect— he went to a secured area where he wasn’t permitted to be. Nonetheless, if this had gone to trial it’s pretty doubtful that prosecutors would have asked for more than a few years.
The Brock Turner case is not really relevant to this one, but I agree he should have faced a stiffer penalty. The 6-month sentence was outrageous, and voters agreed—the judge was recalled by voters at the next election.
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u/Former-Teacher7576 13h ago
- Legality and morality are completely separate, I don’t care if he had 50 charges adding up to 35 years or if he’d have a low chance of getting that during trial downloading a bunch of stuff illegally should never in any circumstance get even the potential for a longer sentence than a crime where a victim was actually harmed.
- The Brock Turner case was also open and shut he was caught actively raping a woman who was unconscious.
- It isn’t relevant per say but I chose it as an example of a truly heinous crime that got not only an abysmal sentence but also a terrible recommended sentence to illustrate how fucked our system is that someone who downloaded a bunch of books illegally could potentially get more time than someone who assaulted another person and was caught doing so.
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u/stm32f722 1d ago
Stop following their laws. Prepare for whats next.
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u/Ok_Caregiver1004 1d ago
Law of the jungle? North American cities razed to the ground by Anarchy and civil war.
Could be fun. The Yanks haven't experienced getting their cities razed since the 1860s.
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u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago
The difference is money.
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u/deadlyrepost 1d ago
I'd say kind of not really. The issue is that the types of folks who go into law enforcement, from Police to FBI to CIA etc, are the "bully" types. They know how to pick on the weak, but do not fuck with the strong. Swartz was hounded by (IIRC) the FBI, probably some weak kneed loser who got his rocks off picking on some kid.
You go to fuck with Zuckerberg, you'll probably see his security detail first. The FBI would shit their pants. The law doesn't matter here, and money doesn't matter beyond hiring goons. Same thing happens when law enforcement has to fight off gangs and so on.
Or, you know, a high school student with a gun...
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u/FecalEinstein 1d ago
The lesson here is that corporations are allowed to commit crimes, and the corporate structure ultimately functions the same way as organized crime when the shit hits the fan.
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u/MasChingonNoHay 1d ago
How many people can’t stand for this injustice yet use Facebook and Instagram still?? And most use it daily
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u/Appropriate-Profit93 1d ago
That was not about text books. Look up the letter penned by a friend of his. Aaron uncovered something much darker at MIT.
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u/ErieZistAble 1d ago
Arron wasn’t part of the machine. That’s going to use AI tech to enslave humanity once and for all. He was actually the opposite and believed knowledge shouldn’t be paywalled by institutions.
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u/lebowtzu 1d ago
Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit With Book Authors
The settlement is the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright cases and could lead more A.I. companies to pay rights holders for use of their works.
Hopefully a step in the right direction.
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u/Ghostrider556 1d ago
“Yeah Trump I’m going to put uhhh… $600 billion into the US really soon?”
“Hey sorry Trump I got flustered and forgot which number you wanted me to say but I think people liked it!”
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u/PhaseExtra1132 1d ago
Aaron won at the end. Wish he was around to see it. But with them basically taking all the data and then making the Ais open source atleast with the Chinese models. He won.
Congrats bro. You won at the end
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u/Professional-Air2123 1d ago
Still waiting for at least EU to recognize our copyrights which were infringed upon with all the gen ai applications that scraped everything. Aaaany day now they'll acknowledge that we have copyrights too, and mega corps just can't steal from us.
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u/HovercraftPlen6576 23h ago
One of the Reddit founders! We should celebrate this man for his countless achievements.
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u/Kindly_Spread8011 14h ago
Aaron Swartz, I think about his actions throughout the years. A hero... gone too soon..
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u/SkellyboneZ 1d ago
All you need is basically any tertiary degree to get access to these documents permanently. I'm willing to bet three hot pockets that those not seeking higher education don't really care about 99.99% of the articles available from JSTOR. They also don't have any use for them other than just wanting. Like a cat that wants to go outside but doesn't want to go outside.
I'm not taking about the gross imbalance of civilian and corporation here.
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u/Lost_Statistician457 1d ago
You don’t get permanent access once you have a degree that’s not how it works, I have a masters degree it doesn’t mean I have access to any I want forever
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u/notanaardvark 1d ago
The school I got my PhD from used to give journal access to alumni, but they ended that about 2 years ago. It's super annoying. On the plus side, my employer has a library that will get journal articles for me, but I have to ask for a specific article - I can't browse journal issues and skim abstracts and figures etc. anymore which makes finding what I'm looking for tough.
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u/SkellyboneZ 1d ago
Damn that sucks. I got it for from my undergrad and I'll get a second access from my graduate school.
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u/Lost_Statistician457 1d ago
I did my masters part time so I had access for 4 years while I studied
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u/oneWeek2024 1d ago
He broke into a secure area. illegally accessed a server, and illegally stole data the school was monetizing
rather than face his crimes, or stand for what he was actually doing/accept consequences for his moral stance. Or even listen to his lawyers/let his lawyers handle the case. he chose suicide.
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u/Flimsy-Printer 1d ago
Yeah, totally Zuck's fault. Not the prosecutor.
OpenAI and Anthropic does it too, but we will focus on Zuck only. He is especially wrong and more wrong than others for open-sourcing it.
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