MIT Releases Swartz Report: Instead of Leading, School Was 'Hands-Off'

curtwoodward writes "MIT's long-awaited internal investigation into its handling of the Aaron Swartz prosecution has been released (PDF), and it's massive — about 180 pages, not counting the reams of supporting documents. And although the report's authors say they were told not to draw any conclusions about MIT's actions — really — they still gently criticized the university. Swartz, a well-known activist, killed himself earlier this year while being prosecuted for federal computer crimes after he improperly downloaded millions of academic research articles. MIT remained notably 'hands-off' throughout the case, the internal report notes, despite requests that it defend Swartz or oppose the prosecution, and ample opportunities to show leadership. The report quotes an MIT official: 'MIT didn't do anything wrong; but we didn't do ourselves proud.'" Swartz's partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, calls the report a whitewash.

improperly?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Swartz, a well-known activist, killed himself earlier this year while being prosecuted for federal computer crimes after he improperly downloaded millions of academic research articles." (emphasis added)

Given that: 1) he wasn't convicted; 2) the journals in question didn't have the right to the works they were selling access to (the authors were generally funded by university/public money, and thus did not hold the copyright and thus could not transfer the rights to the journal); 3) its even debatable if he violated the TOS (he was apparently doing a research project related to the papers, presumably some sort of meta study, which could might be acceptable use for millions of papers), it seems inaccurate to say his downloads were "Improper".

I personally think his actions were perfectly acceptable, proper and legal.

Timing

[OECD]

If MIT is at all serious about implementing any reforms to stop this kind of tragedy from happening again, it must stop objecting to the release of information about the case. Which they will probably do, now that they got "ahead of the story."