The suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz has brought renewed attention to one of the core tensions between the online community and the old guard of media and academia: whether information stored on the Web should be protected by draconian copyright laws dating from the days of print, or whether users should be free to reproduce and share digital copies of information they have a legal right to access. The debate has raged since before the days of Napster and file-sharing turned copyright law into a mainstream discussion topic online, but the death of Swartz has shone a harsh light on the often aggressive prosecutions of individuals accused of copyright violations and other digital crimes.
Swartz was accused of breaking into a wiring closet at M.I.T. and downloading millions of academic journals and articles from the subscription-only service JSTOR. On the surface, the case is fairly cut and dried: Swartz was videotaped breaking into the closet and retrieving his device, and he was facing millions of dollars in fines and up to 35 years in jail. But Swartz was also a well-known Internet activist that had made a name for himself by consistently advocating for the free dissemination of information online. His online manifesto on the topic urged sympathetic Web users to join him in liberating information online, and publishing it so it would be widely available. Unsurprisingly, his actions pricked federal law enforcement officials, who have become far more aggressive in targeting online crimes, particularly copyright violations, since President Obama took office.
As we have discussed, patent and copyright laws have moved mostly in one direction over the past two decades, largely due to concerted lobbying campaigns by media and content creators worried about the potential loss of revenue online. In addition, Congress has consistently passed harsher penalties for online crimes, and the Justice Department has taken up the mantle of policing the Web on behalf of copyright holders and institutions targeted by hackers. Swartz was simply the highest-profile target in an ongoing war, and someone that prosecutors had hoped to make an example of. But the death of Swartz, whose suicide his family claims was motivated by his impending trial and potential lengthy prison sentence, may have shifted public opinion on the topic. On Monday, the Justice Department dropped its charges against Swartz, citing his death. Whether the next activist faces similarly harsh treatment will be determined by whether advocates for the freedom of information can convince someone in the government that the digital world requires new rules to govern how knowledge can be shared.
Online Taxes, Cybersecurity on Agenda for Congress: The two tech policy issues at the top of Congress' agenda for 2013 are cybersecurity and Internet sales taxes, according to this report from CQ Roll Call. The cybersecurity debate remains stuck until the White House decides whether to issue an executive order covering critical infrastructure providers, but momentum has been building to allow states and cities to collect sales tax from Internet retailers. Of course the usual anti-taxation suspects have lined up against such action, but their influence is counterbalanced by concerted lobbying in favor of online sales tax by retailers, governors, and state legislators facing big budget deficits. New Documents CRS Report: Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Op-Ed: Congress Should Pay More Attention to Social Media Russian Firm Finds Another Cyber Spy Campaign: Kaspersky Lab said Monday that it had discovered another sophisticated cyberespionage campaign that had bee in operation since 2007. The firm said the spy campaign mostly targeted government and diplomatic organizations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, but also reached Western Europe and North America. Kaspersky said there were indications that the perpetrators were Russian-speaking, but declined to identify the targets by name. Dell Reportedly in Talks Over Buyout: PC maker Dell is reportedly in talks with private equity firms TPG Capital and Silver Lake to go private. Dell lost a third of its market value last year amid flagging demand for desktop computers and laptops, as consumers increasingly turn to mobile devices. Shares of the third-largest PC maker jumped on the news Monday.