Guilty:

"But I think it’s pretty clear that Swartz exceeded his authorized access here. JSTOR has a password-protected database that Swartz was trying to copy by circumventing code-based barriers to large-scale acces, and Swartz was playing a cat-and-mouse game in which he kept trying to gain access to the database and JSTOR kept trying to block him."

http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/

Intent is also an important issue. He was clearly going to download all the articles and distribute them without permission.

He deserved to be brought to trial. The prosecution had a right to be brought against him.

Collective punishment for US copyright holders. Next they will invite the Mafia to start selling drugs to their citizens. What a way to build a country.

Swartz turned down a plea deal for six months because he didn't believe he was guilty of any crime. This was despite the fact that if you look he acted in an underhanded manner to violate the rights of the creators of JSTOR database and he actually did violate several computer crime laws, see http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-charges/

The reason he's dead, then, isn't overzealous prosecution. It's that he refused to face the reality that what he did was against the law.

This is false. Swartz was offered a plea bargain deal for six months that he turned down because he didn't want to be "labeled" a felon.

He deserved to be labeled a felon, because he took the law into his own hands willfully.

The six month sentence and the label "felon" is what Swartz could not stand, not the 35 years.

So it's not the prosecutors who are responsible for his death. Only Swartz is responsible.

The communist philosophy that the FSF and Lessig advocate led Swartz to send his life in the wrong direction. He *never* made any money and spent his whole life dedicated to "community" things. If he had spent his life more productively oriented, he would never have ended up dead. Lessig bears some responsibility for his death in my book.

He ended up doing some bad things beyond file-sharing (breaking into places and computers to try to upload content to file-sharing networks). I think he did what he did because he believed he was doing what was right, but what he believed was right was disconnected from the world. People are still spreading that false ideology that "information wants to be free", which is nothing less than anarchy. When you spread a false ideology, you destroy lives, especially the young and idealistic. The poisonous hearts of that ideology are the Free Software Foundation and Lawrence Lessig. I suffered a lot of lost income and I think I have had a much worse life than I would have otherwise from having believed in that ideology. So, for me, it's personal, and I have a deep-seated animosity to those guys. Lessig, supposedly a friend of Swartz, tried to blame the federal government for Swartz's death. Lessig and the FSF's support for piracy (and Swartz's naivete) are the reasons Swartz is dead.

There isn't anything moral about fighting for your right to download content that you don't have permission to use. What does your conscience tell you? That you should be able to get whatever you want for free? Or do you feel that the person who created the content you enjoy should have the right to control what they sell it for? We all should have to earn whatever we want to purchase from one another.

There is a place for producing and giving away content for free, but it’s only moral when it’s voluntary on both sides of the transaction. That way the relationship can still be win-win. That's what open source is all about at its very moral, capitalist core. You can be for freedom and not in favor of piracy. The Linux kernel benefits from copy protection and wouldn't exist as it does today without it. Each company that funds Linux development would have to think twice if we lived in a world without copyright protection. They would have to worry about companies stealing their investments and not contributing back. There is no benefit to a "digital right" to take advantage of other people in a civilized society. The Pirate Party doesn’t stand for freedom.

This is an argument from authority, and invalid because you didn't specify what knowledge I am missing and how that lack of knowledge means my arguments are wrong. Also, you are wrong that I don't understand the internet. I obviously know enough to make an informed judgment about TPP and TPB, but in any case the primary issues are moral and legal. You're attempting this argument from authority by saying that you understand the internet, and because I don't obviously my argument is invalid. Please stop the argumentative tactics and point out specifically what I do not understand and how that lack of understanding means that I am wrong. If you can't come up with real arguments against me, then either admit that I'm right or leave a note of support. Thanks.

It doesn't matter what their intentions are. I can think of some cases of linking to TPB for documentary or scholarly purposes where it isn't actually infringement, but in almost every other case it is. TPB shouldn't exist in the first place. TPP is not Voltaire. Their name literally shows what their actions actually support and demonstrates their actions are not one of the marginal cases of linking . If there was a newspaper that did nothing but publish information stolen through underhanded means, the government would have a right to shut it down, and that isn't a violation of freedom of the press.

I can't start and maintain any criminal organization, attach a website to it, and then claim the government can't shut me down because of freedom. The purpose of government is to protect rights. TPB violates rights and should be shut down. Anyone who goes against a government doing that is also violating the property rights of the creators whose rights are violated by TPB.

You are a hypocrite. You are the one arguing so that you can get free stuff without paying for it and then you call me greedy. What could be more greedy than wanting free stuff without having to work for it?

I don't think anyone who creates great works of art does so for the money, because it is very very hard. But if I made one and people want to pay me for it, what's wrong with that?

Nothing. I shouldn't have to give it away for free because you demand I do so. If you don't like that, you should learn to make things yourself.

No. In this case, the only purpose of the proxied website is to link to pirated content. So linking to TPB is supporting piracy. Morally it's the same case as if the purpose of the website were to host or aggregate links to stolen personal files.

Nope, I'm not a shill. I feel very strongly about this issue. I used to think like 99% of slashdot does, but now I'm 100% convinced you're all wrong on these issues. Just trying to help show the way to the right path.

You can compare how wrong different wrong acts. I'm not sure if there's a "spectrum" according to which you could classify all of them (is murdering your wife worse than murdering a child? is what Bernie Madoff did worse than both of those (many people died as a result)? I don't know. But something either is wrong, or it isn't. In order to be on your spectrum (if it's real), something has to be wrong. It either is, or isn't Copyright infringement is wrong.

Note: I don't think the Pirate Party should go to prison for *supporting* piracy: they have a right to do that. But proxying TPB turns them into active participants.