RIP: A Remixer's Manifesto and The Internet's Own Boy, infuriated me at first. As a musician, I was angered at how much the major corporations monetize things and keep the profits for themselves. Artists rarely see any of the money collected from these lawsuits and endeavors. While I understand that companies spend massive amounts of money to produce and market artists and need to recoup this and make a profit, it amazes me that they think that charging a regular citizen hundreds of thousands of dollars for downloading a few songs will encourage people to buy them. It may reduce the number of illegal downloads, but the consequence is a little overboard.
The same can be said about journal articles and such. Many papers are created through grants or by university professors which are provided by the universities or government. These papers are then published and sold back to the universities an colleagues, effectively making them pay twice either directly or indirectly.
In Aaron Swartz's case, there is no question that the way he went about doing some of the things he did to get the JStore article was outside the law (breaking into the mainframe and physically downloading files), the simple act of downloading the files was legal. Had he turned around and sold them or redistributed them, it would have been another strike against him, but the simple indictment on intent to redistribute shouldn't have warranted 35 years in jail and millions of dollars in penalties.
I wonder what would have happened to the Remixer's Manifesto if it had been produced in the US by an American. They probably would have sued him up the creek. I wonder if he has trouble going in and out of the US...
I believe that direct copying, and commercial redistribution is not honest or good, but using parts of the content to create new material should be fair game as long as it is duly credited. As it was pointed out in Remix, by the letter of the law, every person on the planet could be convicted of copyright infringement unless they have never moved or uttered a word in their lives. Will we start seeing people fine every they sing Karaoke or some other song in public?
Ugh!