this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 316 points 2 months ago (16 children)

Not to mention that Swartz had a JSTOR account, which means he was legally entitled to download the things that he did. The part they didn't like was that he used scripts to download en-mass, and a bunch of boomer fucks thought he actually committed a crime.

[–] IllNess@infosec.pub 71 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Well in the Social Network movie and chapter 2 of the Accidental Billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg used wget in shell scripts to get copyrighted images for private servers.

Can we give punish him?

[–] sus@programming.dev 52 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Spotify also originally got all its music by pirating it. But later it started printing money for record labels (while fucking over musicians) so all was forgiven.

[–] OwlHamster@lemm.ee 24 points 2 months ago

That feels a bit disingenuous. The record labels were already thoroughly fucking over musicians.

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[–] Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 39 points 2 months ago

No, he's part of the US oligarchy. Don't criticize too much or you might happen to have sudden, unexplainable tech problems and legal trouble. /s

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 42 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Old people and overreacting to normal things because new ideas are scary and confusing

Name a more iconic duo

[–] Gingernate@programming.dev 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I fear getting old because of this

[–] Evil_incarnate@lemm.ee 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I am getting old. My parents told me that I'd understand how the world works when I get older, but I just hate it more and more.

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago

Sounds like they were right

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[–] coronach@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 2 months ago (4 children)

To be fair, he broke and entered a networking closet as well. But I guess that is a separate issue.

[–] thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev 20 points 2 months ago

The university AND jstor were pretty quick to get as uninvolved from that mess as quick as possible, so it really doesn't matter.... But what you're saying has nothing to do with the case and is also not true. "Broke and entered" implies forced physical access into a clearly forbidden area. The network closet was a room that was left unlocked and was frequently used by janitorial staff to put junk in.

[–] Thordros@hexbear.net 12 points 2 months ago

Walking through an open door in a place you're authorized to access is going to be a hard sell on a B&E conviction, but okay.

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[–] detun3d@lemm.ee 225 points 2 months ago

Important to note Aaron was helping democratize information while companies like Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft just centralize, twist and redact information to monetize access to a dumbed down and censored version of it.

[–] wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.uk 174 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Rest in power, Aaron. 🫡

Eat the rich.

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 32 points 2 months ago

It's Luigi time!

[–] idegenszavak@sh.itjust.works 90 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There is a very good documentary about Aaron's life: The Internet's Own Boy

Its license is Creative Commons, so it's on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M85UvH0TRPc

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 14 points 2 months ago

The movie is on CC? Doing Aaron proud.

[–] xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 82 points 2 months ago

he didn’t kill himself, he was murdered and they framed it to look like he did.

for one, he was very vocal and political, he would’ve at least left a note….

for another, he was too smart and rich to think he couldn’t at least fight the charges….

i might have believed it if he had been sentenced, but he hadn’t even begun trial.

[–] ertai@programming.dev 71 points 2 months ago

Goes to show how much of a joke copyright is. These laws are bought by and made to protect the interests of corporations. disgusting. rip aaron schwarz, your ideas live on.

[–] mnmalst@lemmy.zip 56 points 2 months ago

I am getting so sick of this fucked up world.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 56 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Another reason to tell Obama to fuck himself.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Along with his treatment of Snowden doing a public good.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 9 points 2 months ago

And the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz

[–] underwire212@lemm.ee 55 points 2 months ago

He was murdered. He did not commit suicide.

[–] meowmeowbeanz@sh.itjust.works 49 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Meta hoards the commons like a dragon, pillaging open archives to train its soulless algorithms, while Aaron Swartz—a true steward of knowledge—was hunted down for daring to share.

One gets a slap on the wrist, the other gets a noose of legal threats. Justice? No, this is corporate feudalism, where the lords rewrite the rules and the serfs pay with their lives.

Aaron wanted liberation; Meta wants monopoly. The system rewards the parasite and punishes the visionary. Remember that next time you scroll through their ad-soaked wasteland.

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 months ago

They know that liberation is a threat to them.

[–] HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com 40 points 2 months ago

I love Anna's archive. I still buy e-books, but will download a drm free copy from the archive.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 35 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Crazy idea:

If copyright was invented to prevent printers from scooping authors’ work and out-competing them for sales…

Maybe copyright should only apply if you’re trying to compete with the author?

So like, not if you’re just a lowly individual trying to keep up with the references all of society is making, or understand the world you live in.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 15 points 2 months ago

LotR should have entered the public domain in 2023.

Instead we got the Rings of Power.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago

If we had the political power to fight Disney, then we could enact a UBI so everyone can get free art all the time.

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[–] kn0wmad1c@programming.dev 25 points 2 months ago

It's becoming more and more obvious that they were always referencing bank accounts when saying we're a country of checks and balances.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 23 points 2 months ago

Aaron Swartz lives on

[–] Babalugats@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Is it safe to assume that every single author (apart from the ones that cannot prove their works were in any of those archives at the time) can sue meta for plagiarism and theft?

[–] Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 months ago (4 children)

You can but you won’t win unless you can prove anything, so good luck with that.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even if you can, you're fighting against a company that has annual revenue similar to some country's GDP.

No company should be allowed to get this big.

*unless it's product is collectively owned by the public and for the public as a civil service.

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[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 months ago

I genuinely believe that if he was still around he'd of ended up a proponent for federated social media. I'm pretty sure he was the driving force behind opening it's source, and it wasn't until four years after his death that it was closed off again.

[–] badmin@lemm.ee 15 points 2 months ago (4 children)

This is like the worst example possible, considering Aaron himself was rich, which should tell you the obvious, that being rich was never a sole differentiator.

But that might be too disruptive to the current echo chamber.

[–] PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee 19 points 2 months ago

You need to be "i own several politicians" level of rich before it helps

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 12 points 2 months ago

Tbh I just couldn't think of a good title. Maybe "Laws don't matter if its a company doing it"?

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[–] stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 months ago

laws for thee not for me

[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

who da fuck disliked the post? How dare you!

[–] bigfoot@lemm.ee 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Any discussion/advice community that allows low-effort meme slop will inevitably become choked out by it. I understand I am in the minority and the mods like having the memes, but eventually we'll need /c/piracydiscussion if content of this formatting is permitted.

Obviously 99% of people here would agree that Aaron Swarts' story is a tragedy. But simple low-hanging fruit content is not what I want this place to have. And like it or not this community is likely to become the single biggest place to discuss piracy as Reddit inevitably cracks down on it.

[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't think the post is a meme nor low effort content

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[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Probably the same person that snitched on Luigi.

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[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

but, to be clear, we didn't want Aaron to be prosecuted, so things are better, now.

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