We need to talk about the difference in treatment given by the American justice system to the free knowledge activist Aaron Swartz, and to Big Tech Artificial Intelligence companies.
Hi, I'm Laura, I have a master's degree in Communication and Information and I'm an undergraduate student in Internet Systems. And today I want to discuss how the law weight differs when the goal is public knowledge versus private profit.
For those who don't know: Aaron Swartz was a prodigy programmer who co-authored the RSS protocol, co-founded Reddit, and contributed to Creative Commons. His trajectory was especially marked by an act that directly challenged the closed knowledge industry.
Between 2010 and 2011, Aaron connected a laptop to the MIT network to download approximately 4.8 million scientific articles from the JSTOR platform. He had authorized access, but was sued for the massive quantity of data retrieved.
Aaron Swartz's motivation was to democratize access to science. He did not distribute the works, and there was never any indication of commercial intent. Still, he was charged with 13 federal crimes, facing up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
In January 2013, at the age of 26, while the trial was underway, Aaron took his own life. Now, fast forward to the advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
OpenAI trained its models with 45 terabytes of data — millions of books and articles — without any authorization. The CEO himself stated that without copyright infringement, it would have been impossible to train the AI.
Even more bizarrely, Meta admitted to using BitTorrent to illegally download over 81.7 terabytes of copyrighted material from pirate libraries like LibGen to train its LLaMA model. Internal emails reveal that Mark Zuckerberg allegedly approved the use of pirated data despite ethical concerns.
The contrast is evident. Aaron Swartz was criminalized for attempting to expand access to materials already paid for with public funds. OpenAI and Meta, private corporations, appropriated a far larger amount of data to build a commercial product valued at billions.
The algorithm IS NOT NEUTRAL. This asymmetry reveals a structural pattern: when access to knowledge threatens power structures, it is punished. When it serves capital, it is called "innovation."
Ultimately, the essential question that emerges is: who defines what is legitimate in the access and use of knowledge? And you... do you believe the law should treat a social activist and a corporation differently?