Aaron Swartz, freedom fighter

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:07:00 +0000

For Aaron Swartz, the act of sharing was a "moral imperative." In his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, released to the Web in July 2008, he specifically targeted the "world's entire scientific and cultural heritage," which he said "is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations." Swartz called for those with access to such knowledge to make it available to others.

You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not -- indeed, morally, you cannot -- keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends ... Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.

In July 2011, Swartz was arrested on charges of illegally downloading 4.8 million documents from JSTOR, an online archive of scholarly articles. Facing a maximum possible prison sentence of 35 years and a fine of as much as a million dollars, Swartz killed himself Friday night, just two days after prosecutors rejected a plea bargain deal that would have allowed him to avoid jail time.

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Aaron Swartz, freedom fighter