[okfn-discuss] Fwd: <nettime> Aaron Swartz charged for downloading too many Journal articles from the Library: Please sign suport petition.

Thu Jul 21 11:33:33 UTC 2011

I have blogged my personal thoughts.

http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/07/20/the-ethics-of-%E2%80%9Cstealing%E2%80%9D-scientific-articles-and-civil-disobedience/

If (and I am not sure whether it is till we have more info - perhaps in the
trial) this is an act of civil disobedience - there can be merit in it. If
it is Guerilla OA (as I believe he earlier indulged in) then I think that is
outside the OKF's remit and practice. The OKF is not a lobbying organization
and should also not support deliberate law breaking at this time.

We are - as we are reminded at OKCon's and elsewhere - in the middle of a
major battle for our future information world. What I think the OKF does
best is to define where we want to be. There are certainly different ways of
getting there. At present I think OKF benefits from having a community where
a number of other players (government particularly, but also early Open
adopters in the publishing community, such as BMC's adoption of the Panton
Principles).

This does not mean that we cannot personally adopt a wide range of views
about Swartz, but I don't think this maps onto OKF activities.

P.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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