[emkemp]

According to the Wall Street Journal[1], the government would probably have asked for 7 years, and a plea bargain offer was made to reduce to 6-8 months in prison. The 35+ years was the potential maximum, would have required conviction on all charges, and ultimately would have required an independent trial judge to "throw the book at him."

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB1000142412788732458150...

And "checking out too many books at once" = allegedly hacking into a third party network to download 4 million articles from 1,000 academic journals without paying the required fees.

[chris_wot]

7 years, for downloading articles that should probably be in the public domain? Well, that's not prosecutorial overreach at all.

[mpyne]

6-8 months is what the prosecutors asked for, remember?

According to Lessig that wasn't even the sticking point for Aaron: Aaron didn't want to plead guilty to a felony, he wanted lesser charges.

[chris_wot]

Allow me to rephrase that then: 6-8 months, for downloading articles that should probably be in the public domain? Well, that's not prosecutorial overreach at all.

[toyg]

"allegedly hacking into [...] without paying the required fees

"Crime against 'intellectual property', goddammit! Let him rot in prison, I say! That content was paid-for by tax dollars, and nobody lost a dime because he never redistributed it, but so what? It's the principle: if you break property laws, you should always go to prison."

[emkemp]

"nobody lost a dime because he never redistributed it"

Because he was caught?