...His [Swartz] contention was that JSTOR collected money for access to academic journal content, but did not pay the authors or copyright holders, and made it prohibitively expensive for millions of potential readers to access results of publicly financed research. JSTOR is a "non-profit" corporation...
...Most of my readers will know that I am no opponent of the legitimate copyright ownership of intellectual property. I make my living off sales or donations for access to my intellectual property. Authors, artists, composers, inventors, and other intellectual property creators have moral and ethical rights to their creations, and it is in the interest of society to protect that interest. This was considered worth its own clause in the Constitution of 1787. On the other hand, taxpayers and others who support public institutions and research have some rights too: particularly when the actual creator of the intellectual property are not being compensated, and in fact are often losing deserved esteem from citation of their works and general promulgation of their papers. Writers write to be read. Samuel Johnson observed that no man but a blockhead ever wrote for anything except money, but that isn’t quite true. Some do write to be read, and in the case of scientific research, widespread promulgation is essential to the scientific process.
It is not at all clear that the JSTOR monopoly is the best way to achieve the distribution of scientific and other academic research efforts. Perhaps it is, but I have not seen the case made. At the very least they might publish the salaries and perks of the executives and directors of JSTOR and ITHAKA. Indeed, one wonders why they do not, since they are quite proud of being non-profit corporations...
"my comments about his cowardly act stand"
Just another supporter of the American Police State, and Fascist Cronyism...
bleeeech