26 year old Aaron Swart was found
dead in his New York apartment on Friday January 11th, weeks before he was to
go on trial for downloading subscription-only academic papers with the intent
to distribute them.
dead in his New York apartment on Friday January 11th, weeks before he was to
go on trial for downloading subscription-only academic papers with the intent
to distribute them.
The hacker-activist was facing
federal charges, a possible sentence of 35 years in prison and a $1 million
fine. Guess he couldn't take it all and so he hanged himself in his apartment
in Brooklyn on Friday.
federal charges, a possible sentence of 35 years in prison and a $1 million
fine. Guess he couldn't take it all and so he hanged himself in his apartment
in Brooklyn on Friday.
"Aaron has been depressed
about his case/upcoming trial, but we had no idea what he was going through was
this painful." Susan Swartz, Aaron's mother, posted on a hacker section of
the Ycombinator Web site today.
Sample papers Swartz attempted to
set free include "John Berryman: The Poetics of Martyrdom" and
"Mapping the Niger, 1798-1832: Trust, Testimony and 'Ocular Demonstration'
in the Late Enlightenment." On its own initiative, JSTOR, which hosts the
academic papers and never pressed charges against Swartz, started offering
limited free access to its archive just this week.
Two years ago, in January, 2011,
Swartz was arrested for, essentially, setting information free - as an
animal-rights activist might liberate a zoo. In 2008, he had thrown open PACER,
a subscription-only trove of federal judicial documents. And then he had
downloaded the 4.8 million articles from JSTOR. Swartz was ch arged, then, with
wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected
computer and damaging a protected computer.
Swartz was arrested for, essentially, setting information free - as an
animal-rights activist might liberate a zoo. In 2008, he had thrown open PACER,
a subscription-only trove of federal judicial documents. And then he had
downloaded the 4.8 million articles from JSTOR. Swartz was ch arged, then, with
wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected
computer and damaging a protected computer.
