After reading this week’s articles on copy writing and Aaron Schwartz I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I think Schwartz deserves his credit for hit attempt to share digital content from JSTOR with everyone in the world. On the other, I think that he was stealing and the fact that the federal government was prosecuting him was no fault of his own. I love Schwartz’s belief that all information should be free and available to the public. I don’t like the idea of information being stored away and being sold. I believe in a perfect world academic information would be available to anyone who is willing to read it. But, even with those beliefs I understand that information has been sold since the beginning of time. I bet that the man who invented fire by rubbing two sticks together didn’t show everyone for free. I bet he traded his information for something useful like food to cook on the fire. Soon fire making would be common knowledge but I believe originally the skill had a price and rightfully so. I feel the same about much of the content on the internet. I feel that some knowledge is common and known to everyone and the internet does a great job at letting people share that information. I also understand that it takes people a lot of time and money in research to generate new information. Then, it takes a completely different group a lot of time and money to organize and store this information digitally. That is why I am on the fence about this whole issue. I love the idea of free knowledge but I understand no one works for free. Just because the internet is easily accessible it doesn’t mean it didn’t take someone a lot of time and money to present it. That is why I liken Aaron Schwartz to Robin Hood because even though he was trying to better society he was still clearly breaking the law to do it.
jdilts828 