What made me so overwhelmingly angry yesterday was the same thing that has been boiling in my gut for the last two years. When the federal government went after him – and MIT sheepishly played along – they weren’t treating him as a person who may or may not have done something stupid. He was an example. And the reason they threw the book at him wasn’t to teach him a lesson, but to make a point to the entire Cambridge hacker community that they were p0wned. It was a threat that had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with a broader battle over systemic power. In recent years, hackers have challenged the status quo and called into question the legitimacy of countless political actions. Their means may have been questionable, but their intentions have been valiant. The whole point of a functioning democracy is to always question the uses and abuses of power in order to prevent tyranny from emerging. Over the last few years, we’ve seen hackers demonized as anti-democratic even though so many of them see themselves as contemporary freedom fighters. And those in power used Aaron, reframing his information liberation project as a story of vicious hackers whose terroristic acts are meant to destroy democracy.

Reasonable people can disagree about tactics and where and when a particular approach pushes too far. Like Lessig, I often disagreed with Aaron about his particular approach to freeing the world’s information, even if I never disagreed with him about the goal. And one of the reasons why so many hackers and geeks spent yesterday raging against the machine is because so many people in power have been unable to see past the particular acts and understand the intentions and activism. So much public effort has been put into controlling and harmonizing geek resistance, squashing the rebellion, and punishing whoever authorities can get their hands on. But most geeks operate in gray zones, making it hard for them to be pinned down and charged. It’s in this context that Aaron’s stunt gave federal agents enough evidence to bring him to trial to use him as an example. They used their power to silence him and publicly condemn him even before the trial even began.

Yesterday, there was an outpouring of information about his case, including an amazing account from the defense’s expert witness. Many people asked why people didn’t speak up before. I can only explain my reasoning. I was too scared to speak publicly for fear of how my words might be used against him. And I was too scared to get embroiled in the witch hunt that I’ve watched happen over the last three years. Because it hasn’t been about justice or national security. It’s been about power. And it’s at the heart and soul of why the Obama administration has been a soul crushing disappointment to me. I’ve gotten into a ridiculous number of fights over the last couple of years with folks in the administration over the treatment of geeks and the misunderstanding of hackers, but I could never figure how to make a difference on that front. This was a source of serious frustration for me, even as SOPA/PIPA showed that geeks could make a difference.

So here we are today, the world lacking a prodigious child whose intellect scared the shit out of everyone who knew him. He became a toy for a government set on showing their strength. And they bullied him and preyed on his weaknesses and sought to break him. And they did. All for the performance of justice. All before he was even tried in a society that prides itself on innocent until proven guilty. Was depression key to what happened on Friday? Certainly. But it wasn’t the whole story. And that’s what makes it hard for me to stomach.

Posted by Phil M]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:20:20 -0800 The Stranger Posted by gloomy gus]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:24:31 -0800 The Stranger
Time to cancel software and business process patents (or allow them to expire in 5 years) and expire copyrights not issued to the living author (a natural person, not a fictional legal entity) or their heirs in the year of death, for a 14 year period plus one renewal.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:15:32 -0800 The Stranger If all of the research material you need was produced after the year 2000 or so

Here I think you've hit upon a serious problem - the fact that the US government has, over the century, lengthened copyright expiration from 28 years to 70 years after the author's death.

Were it not for this fact, the entire body of scientific literature up to 1985 would, as it should, be public domain.
Posted by seandr]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:42:20 -0800 The Stranger You contradict yourself. One moment you are talking about how important the journals are to keeping out crackpot research and the next moment you say that the scientists don't need them.

I'm making two separate and, I think, non-contradictory points:
1) At present, journals are the gatekeepers, and say what you want about pricing, they do a pretty good job at that role. The fact that an article appears in Science, Nature, Cell, or The American Journal of Homeopathic Medicine, for example, conveys quite a bit about the significance and quality of the work. If you simply tear that system down and say "Hey man, dig my research, it's free!" you have will have effectively killed science.

2) Scientists willingly, no make that eagerly, give away government funded research to those journals in exchange for the prestige, fame, and career advancement that comes with publishing in them. But there's nothing the journals can do to prevent scientists from renegotiating the terms of publishing, collectively if need be. Journals also can't stop scientists from developing other, competing publishing models that play gatekeeper and assume the costs of publishing (which costs money regardless of whether it involves printing).

How generous of them! A couple of free copies of taxpayer funded research for the colleagues of the researcher.

100 or so free copies is more than enough to meet demand for 99% of published research articles. :-)

Also, the journals aren't selling you the research, they are selling a particular, copyrighted description of that research. Scientists are free to republish their results wherever they want, and sometimes do, although they'd have to change around wording to avoid copyright infringement.

I'm not saying that journals don't have problems. Maybe their profit margins are unjustifiably high. If that problem can't be fixed through collective negotiation from scientists and universities, it's not enough to simply steal all of their copyrighted articles and put them online. You need to come up with an alternative gatekeeper mechanism.
Posted by seandr]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:32:40 -0800 The Stranger They can and they do. Any scientist is free to put unpublished manuscripts on the web. In fact, there are entire sites out there dedicated to this purpose.

That would be awesome if all of the research material you need was produced after the year 2000 or so and the scientist was open about their research (which is not that common). Otherwise you shit out of luck and you are going to have to deal with a journal.

They also bear publishing costs.

They don't have to. Just use Google Scholar. Nobody needs a paper journal anymore and Google is more than happy to host research papers. And if not them, a thousand other universities would do it.

They don't own the research, they own the journal, and scientists who submit their work to those journals do so willingly with the hope that their work reaches that journal's audience. If a scientist doesn't want to play that game, she publish her work in whatever way she sees fit.

You contradict yourself. One moment you are talking about how important the journals are to keeping out crackpot research and the next moment you say that the scientists don't need them. Apparently they are happily choosing to have their research put under lock and key. Tell me, how does it look for getting tenure, jobs, or grants to say "I didn't publish it in a journal, but here is the website". Journals force every scientist to go through them as the gatekeeper of knowledge. And they use this to their advantage.

even if a journal accepts a paper, they allow authors to hand out limited numbers of free copies of published research to people upon request

How generous of them! A couple of free copies of taxpayer funded research for the colleagues of the researcher. That solves everything!

Online journal access is free to anyone with even the remotest association with a university. My wife has some sort of unpaid, assistant, adjunct trainer position at UW, and even she has free access. As an alumnus, you can pay a modest fee for access to almost any journal on earth. And literally anyone can walk into Suzzallo and photocopy to their heart's content.

That is so awesome. Except that even extremely large universities like UW can't afford every journal. Many journals have annual subscription prices ranging up to 6 figures. For small institutions or private researchers not associated with universities, the cost is prohibitive. This is why the Feds are claiming that Aaron Swartz downloaded millions of dollars worth in academic papers. For the journals who are holding ransom the papers that were paid for with taxpayer money, they are worth millions.
Posted by delirian]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:22:01 -0800 The Stranger
Aaron Swartz may have entered an unlocked room without explicit permission. He may have downloaded publicly-funded information at a rate higher than that at which JSTOR expected those at MIT who JSTORE invited to download were expected to download it. I am confident that the actions leading to this ridiculous prosecution by the United States government did not involve him stealing anything from anyone.
Posted by Phil M]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:21:39 -0800 The Stranger The journals have brainwashed you. You have drank too much of their Kool Aid.

I haven't drank any Kool Aid, nor has any been offered to me.

They don't pay for the research or the peer review.

They don't pay for research, never said they did. They do, however, pay editors who play an important role in managing the peer review - e.g., selecting peers, evaluating reviews, making calls as to whether a publication meets the quality bar

The journals simply accept or reject papers.

They also bear publishing costs.

And who needs that today?

In this day in age where people make preposterous, hurtful, and damaging claims based on horseshit science, we all need this. A carefully managed peer-review process has become an essential component of the scientific method.

Almost all scientists wish that they could freely distribute their research.

They can and they do. Any scientist is free to put unpublished manuscripts on the web. In fact, there are entire sites out there dedicated to this purpose.

The journals prevent this.

This this is ridiculously incorrect. The journals don't prevent this, nor can they. They don't own the research, they own the journal, and scientists who submit their work to those journals do so willingly with the hope that their work reaches that journal's audience. If a scientist doesn't want to play that game, she publish her work in whatever way she sees fit.

Moreover, even if a journal accepts a paper, they allow authors to hand out limited numbers of free copies of published research to people upon request - none of my requests have ever been turned down by the author.

In reality, the publishing industry puts no enforcement on small scale "piracy" of copyrighted material. You can download dozens of published manuscripts from my former adviser's web site right now, and 6 of my own publications from my web site, including one from Science. They've been up there for over a decade, and I've never heard a peep from any publisher about it.

And with their enormous prices, they prevent the research from being disseminated to other scientists.

Online journal access is free to anyone with even the remotest association with a university. My wife has some sort of unpaid, assistant, adjunct trainer position at UW, and even she has free access. As an alumnus, you can pay a modest fee for access to almost any journal on earth. And literally anyone can walk into Suzzallo and photocopy to their heart's content.

Journals are a plague to science. Groups like PLOS are the future.

PLOS maybe the future, but unless if can find an army of volunteers to manage the costs of publishing and do a good job with quality control, you'll either be paying them, or we'll have a truly "democratic" scientific method in which things like holocaust denials, claims that women's bodies can't be impregnated by rape, and studies showing that smoking actually cures cancer given equal billing and credence with actual science.
Posted by seandr]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:32:07 -0800 The Stranger
Yes, there are some nuances and Dominic presents a thumbnail sketch, but holy crap, are you guys filled w/ blind ignorance to what really happened. This is a big story all over the internet, so there is no excuse for you folks not having the tools to find the articles.
Posted by Some Old Nobodaddy Logged In]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:24:50 -0800 The Stranger Posted by delirian]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:21:06 -0800 The Stranger

• "Prosecutor as Bully" by Lawrence Lessig: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/4034746304…


• "The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s `Crime'" by Alex Stamos, who was to appear as expert witness for the defense in Aaron's criminal trial: http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-trut…
  

Posted by Phil M]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:01:47 -0800 The Stranger
... just saying.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:59:10 -0800 The Stranger
Even when these publishers have reluctantly allowed open-access to papers, they charge the AUTHORS of the articles on the order of $3,000. This means that authors at less prestigious universities/departments are forced to publish in closed-access journals.

Oh -- and many journals won't let you host drafts of your own papers on your website.

Academic publishers are parasites. Nobody - from the reviewers, to the authors, to the universities that pay subscriptions for them to keep them afloat - actually likes them. And increasingly, I think, the younger generation of researchers is finding that they are unnecessary evils, except for the purposes of getting a job, which requires publishing in the journals that they serve as gate-keepers for.

I look forward to them shrivelling up like leeches covered in salt.

(Note: JSTOR is not a publisher; it is an information repository.)
Posted by TheLurker]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:50:29 -0800 The Stranger
Thanks Dom, for making me look into her more - I like this lady and what she stands for, as little respect I have for prosecutors in general. For you to say she is responsible for his suicide is utter, fallacious bullshit. Working with incarcerated populations, I can tell you that a great many of them are depressed and suicidal over what they consider to be their unjust punishment over minor offenses. But when it's a 19 year old black kid who hangs himself in his cell over a robbery conviction, no one, least of all the people in this thread, straight up give a fuck.
Posted by johnjjeeves]]> Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:50:19 -0800 The Stranger