this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Piracy
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One should also note that Aaron did it to share scientific knowledge, meta did it to generate more profit
update based on comments: perhaps better to say probably share and and/or gain access to scientific data for non profit research purposes
And that JSTOR didn't want sue him, it was the DA pursuing it. Afaik JSTOR even published the articles in question for free 3 months after he downloaded them, basically agreeing with his criticism.
Fuck Meta. Reddit is doing it to itself with Google's help. That's even more of a slap to his face than facebook.
The documentary indicates it's unclear why he did it. It could have been to share, it could have been for his own research. His outlook on data was that it should be freely available to all but in the case the prosecutors assumed his motives. We don't actually know what he intended with the data. It's important to remember that. Because that small detail is enough to elevate the injustice of his death. He was destroyed for downloading too much information that should have been freely available in the first place.
Yes that was an interpretation on my part given his perspective on making such information publicly available, hard to imagine he would be doing anything else with it. Nevertheless, updated my comment.
There's also a decent case to be made that he wasn't planning on sharing it at all. He might have just been using the articles, which he had permission to access, to do research.