Monday, January 14, 2013

JSTOR announces that SOME public articles will now be free to the public

commentary by Roger Erickson

Aaron Swartz died while being prosecuted - by the FBI - for the reckless crime of demanding JSTOR provide the public free access to public data. Why was he prosecuted? JSTOR is immersed in the CopyRight camp, which is in the Rentier camp, which is in the camp obsessed with hoarding liquidity ... all parts of the camp that don't understand currency operations, nor social liquidity, nor cultural operations.

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Experts puzzled over the arrest and argued that the result of the actions Mr Swartz was accused of was the same as his PACER program: more information publicly available.

The prosecution "makes no sense," Demand Progress Executive Director David Segal said at the time. "It's like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library."

Mr Swartz faced 13 felony charges, including breaching site terms and intending to share downloaded files through peer-to-peer networks, computer fraud, wire fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture.

JSTOR announced this week that it would make more than 4.5 million articles publicly available for free.

Mr Swartz's funeral is scheduled for Tuesday in Highland Park, Illinois


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Does JSTOR's belated response to the Aaron Swartz debacle constitute a Fast Transient? Or just another response that's a day late and another life short?

Pity it had to come to this.

FBI staff, DoJ staff, university faculty and Congresspeople, like those in all other bureaucracies, periodically find themselves ignoring what's right, when keeping their job depends on them assisting wrong.

Experiences similar to this - what the FBI/DoJ/Congress and their lobbies just did - will happen to everyone, at least once in their life. Success tracks our tempo in minimizing the net frequency and impact of such events in our culture. If not, then we lose trust in our institutions, our government, our nation, and ourselves. At that point we fail, become less American, and become more like Russian or other failed, totalitarian cultures.

When YOUR institution's momentum is in the wrong, then it's better for your country if you help change your institution's momentum - the sooner the better. If you can't, then consider joining the opposition!

Adaptive Rate tracks the appearance of Fast Transients (catalysts) that lower the barriers to early detection, early analysis and early intervention.

We have to do what's right because, in the end, what's wrong can't scale, even when "everyone is doing it."


4 comments:

Tom Hickey said...

This BS is all about creating artificial scarcity to extract economic rent. There is a huge battle going on right now and the winner are already decided by history and it is not TPTB. Unfortunately there will be many casualties like Aaron Schwartz on the way there. But there a lot of very smart people who are committed to recovering the commons from enclosure. BTW most great fortunes can be traced to enclosure or other extraction of economic rent through imposition of artificial scarcity.

Roger Erickson said...

meanwhile, Military suicides rise to a record 349, topping number of troops killed in combat;
that's nearly one per day;
morale must be great there too

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/military-suicides-rise-to-a-record-349-topping-number-of-troops-killed-in-combat/2013/01/14/e604e6b4-5e8c-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story.html

FICA just go up for active military staff too;
shows how much the GOP cares

Unknown said...

Re: BTW most great fortunes can be traced to enclosure or other extraction of economic rent through imposition of artificial scarcity.

Balzac: "Behind every great fortune is a great crime."

Tom Hickey said...

Unfortunately, the Horatio Alger story is a myth.