[redrobot5050]

1) It's very likely the $1.5 million figure is heavily inflated so as to help the prosecution with their case. I would like to see people really investigate where this $1.5 million is coming from? Was that how much JSTOR was really making off those documents, or were they using RIAA-style accounting to come up with its "value"? Considering JSTOR hasn't exactly been forthcoming in their public statements, many believe they don't see anything criminal with A.S.' actions. They would prefer he simply go through 'proper channels'.

2) If Schwartz is smart, he will not comment on his intentions no matter what. Simply maintain his denial that he intended to upload them anonymously to BitTorrent. Make the case entirely about the facts on hand. "Is it hacking to violate a site's TOS"?

3. MIT and DOJ could assume that there are other ways to stop whatever illegal actions they're assuming besides criminal prosecution. Already someone has leaked 30 million scientific papers from JSTOR simply because they assumed this is what MIT and DOJ were trying to stop.

[tptacek]

Doubt it. JSTOR subscriptions have a public price list; if MIT is paying "tens of thousands of dollars annually" for it, they are getting a deep discount. If every organization of MIT's size is paying tens of thousands of dollars for it, JSTOR is generating millions annually.

Yes, by the way: it is "hacking" (computer fraud and abuse) to violate a site's ToS knowingly, recklessly, or purposefully. To preempt a recurring stupid message board article: it is tremendously difficult to prove that a blog commenter or a site visitor knowingly violated some random clause in your ToS, which is why tiny little ToS violations on blog sites don't get prosecuted.

[redrobot5050]

So if I were to try to scrub photos accessible to me with a valid username and password from Facebook, (btw Facebook makes millions annually off its users viewing photos) I would be hacking?

[pyre]

  > scrub photos

You mean 'delete' or did you mean 'scrape?'

[redrobot5050]

Scrape.

[badclient]

Not sure if it would be considered hacking but facebook has definitely sued and won judgments against folks who scraped data from public facebook profiles.

[redrobot5050]

I did some googling, and while Facebook has sued small fare (like individual researchers) those researchers have pointed out that all the public profiles have been cached by Google's webcrawler, and they haven't sued Google (yet).

If Google can do it, why can't the little guy?