This post is an archive. The live version can be found on a new blog called Arsehole Justice (no offence).
It seems the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security under the Obama White House are increasingly viewing themselves as the guardians and protectors of all United States intellectual property. Operation In Our Sites, launched by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement branch of Homeland Security in June 2010 has seen some 90 internet domains seized that were associated with websites believed to be engaged in the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials or sale of counterfeit goods. Earlier this month ICE made the alarming claim that they believe any web domain that sits under the top level domains of .com or .net fall under US jurisdiction because the DNS for those TLDs is routed through Verisign's switches located in Virginia. This was reported in the Guardian newspaper. According to Erik Barnett, the agency's assistant deputy director, this allows the United States to seek extradition of foreign nationals who use .com or .net domains in their law-breaking activities, regardless of the locations of the nationals or the servers and regardless of whether the activities are legal in the local jurisdiction.
This stance became clear as ICE sought from the British government the extradition of a UK national who had created a web site that allowed a user community to post links to video content, some of which had been made available on sites such as Youtube without respecting copyright. In the United Kingdom, Richard O'Dwyer's tvshack.net website (in the aforementioned article) would enjoy the "mere conduit" defence as it was simply a platform that serves a user community who provide the content. It is arguable whether a URL can even be treated as a copyrightable work in any context. A Uniform Resource Locator is nothing more than a signpost to the resource that a web browser is seeking. The content delivered through a URL can change at any time, so it is hard to see how a URL can represent a work any more than a telephone number can represent a person. It seems however that in the United States, this is beyond question.
The very worrying development that I've seen today however, makes this case seem insignificant. Yesterday Aaron Swartz, a fellow at Harvard University's Center for Ethics and an activist for open knowledge, was arrested and charged with offences under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The alleged offences include hacking into JSTOR, a non-profit organization that hosts academic journals, via a computer room at MIT and then downloading millions of research papers onto his laptop computer. JSTOR charges for its content, and research universities typically pay a flat fee for access and then make the digitized journals available for free to faculty, staff and guests for research purposes (as one might reasonably expect). The indictment, which can be read at the bottom of the linked article, charges that Swartz used subterfuge to gain unauthorized access to MIT's computer network and used software tools and trivial measures to automate the downloading of content and to circumvent the weak efforts made by MIT and JSTOR to prevent such mass downloading. Eventually, he was found out and somehow the FBI got involved. It's not clear how the Feds initially were activated, but it is clear that both JSTOR and MIT were eventually satisfied that there was no harm done as Swartz gave assurances that he did not intend to distribute the articles that he downloaded.
One would have thought that the matter might end right there, but one would be wrong. The US Attorney's Office decided to press ahead with a prosecution for felony computer hacking, worth up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine. Because the files were accessed from a computer in Massachusetts and the JSTOR servers are located in another state, this rises to federal jurisdiction. Here is what JSTOR have to say on the matter:
We stopped this downloading activity, and the individual responsible, Mr. Swartz, was identified. We secured from Mr. Swartz the content that was taken, and received confirmation that the content was not and would not be used, copied, transferred, or distributed.
The criminal investigation and today’s indictment of Mr. Swartz has been directed by the United States Attorney’s Office. It was the government’s decision whether to prosecute, not JSTOR’s. As noted previously, our interest was in securing the content. Once this was achieved, we had no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter.
JSTOR, in other words, are not really bothered about this breach and having engaged in civil discourse with Aaron Swartz were prepared to take him at his word that he had no intention of distributing the materials. Why then is the US Attorney's Office so keen to prosecute Swartz for what amounts to little more than the violation of an online service's terms of use? Since when is it a crime, federal or otherwise, to violate a web site's terms and conditions? I would have thought this was clearly a civil matter. More importantly, why is the federal government enforcing a web site's terms and conditions when the company that owns the website is not asserting them? The files that Aaron Swartz downloaded were ones he was free to download as a guest of MIT. He just wasn't supposed to take so many. He may have gained unauthorised access to the MIT computer network, but that would be between himself and the university with no state lines having been crossed.
I find this approach deeply troubling as the US Attorney's Office is sending a clear message that it has a mandate to pursue a prosecution on copyright grounds even against the wishes of the copyright owner. JSTOR act as an agent for the journals who own the copyright of selected works, and so they have a responsibility to ensure that royalties are collected and properly distributed. If JSTOR are willing to take the risk that Mr Swartz will not redistribute the materials he downloaded, they must believe that the risk is insignificant. There is nothing to suggest that any of the journals that figure into this story have sought a remedy for copyright infringement. What we have here is the federal government taking charge of enforcing copyright even when the copyright owners are not bothered about it. That makes no sense. Surely as a copyright owner who licenses content I can decide on a case by case basis whether or not I want to enforce that license. It is not for the federal government to intervene like some sort of guardian angel. This sets a terrible precedent. Whatever next? Will the federal government decide that all content should be governed by commerce whether we like it or not? Will it be un-American of me to give away for free the content that is of my own creation? Sounds silly. I'm not laughing though.
