by anonymous908213 | 2026-02-19 17:30:29+00:00
I refrained from replying to this until now because I felt this thread was excessively pedantic, but Aaron Swartz is in fact one of the cases I had in mind when writing my original comment about "harshly as possible". To say that his case was only "tangentially" copyright-related is whitewashing the copyright lobby of its complicity in his death. It is, in fact, the primary reason he died. The US government was trying to make an example out of him, and stacked every charge they possibly could, because of his act of copyright infringement. Perhaps, with a shallow understanding of the case, you might see the list of felonies he was charged with and come to the conclusion that copyright infringement was only one small part of the case against him. But the copyright infringement was the crux of the case, and the rest of the charges were "throwing the book at him" in the well-defined meaning of the term[1]. His suicide was a direct result of the overzealous prosecution attempting to ruin his life with charges wildly disproportionate to the harm he caused to society (ie. basically none). It is worth noting he had not even shared the material he had downloaded, although the prosecution made a case on asserting that they believed he intended to.

[1]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/throw_the_book_at

Now, as for "the rest of us are prosecuted as harshly as possible if caught". You are correct in your pedantry that this statement not expressed as rigorously as it possibly could have been. There are different classes of copyright infringement; "receiving" and "perpetuating" being two of them [to avoid further pedantry, I am not asserting this is precise legal terminology but rather a lay distinction for the purposes of discussion]. It is the latter case which is tried as harshly as possible when caught, and there are many such examples other than Swartz, and I think it was clear my intent when I said it despite the fact that I did not write about the distinction at length.

That is not to say the situation around the former type of copyright infringement is so kind, either. While in some countries it is mostly overlooked, which I believe to be the case in the US, in other countries it is more strictly enforced, such being the case in my own country. While "as harshly as possible" isn't accurate to prosecution against infringement of this nature, you can still be disproportionately punished relative to the damage caused when downloading pirated material for personal viewing, if caught (and ISPs/rightsholders do monitor for it to the best of their abilities).

There is also a third class of copyright infringement to consider which is highly disfavourable to individuals: derivative works. Strictly speaking, even as something as simple as drawing fanart of a character or remixing a song is illegal, even if the activity is completely non-commercial in nature. This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. Rightsholders know that copyright law reformation would gain tremendous popular support if they were draconian about enforcing their rights against derivative works, and that allowing fan communities to bloom is actually beneficial to their own IP, so enforcement is highly selective. However, that arbitrary, selective nature of enforcement is itself dangerous to individuals, and is sometimes used to punish specific individuals as harshly as possible at the whims of the IP holder. It is true that not everyone is actually subjected to this, but the threat of it happening looms over everyone who expresses their creativity through derivative works.

None of this sits right with me, especially as corporations are hoovering up every piece of copyrighted material they possibly can and creating commercial derivative-work-machines that mass-produce sloppified derivative works, and are getting a completely free pass by the legal system to do so while individuals are still treated like felons for 'crimes' that are at most marginally harmful, or in the case of the creative production of derivative works, not only not harmful but actually beneficial to society.