Excessive intellectual property infringement penalties are suggested to have caused an advocate of open access, Aaron Swartz, to take his own life.

Discussion Question Number Two

• Aaron Swartz's suicide was caused primarily by MIT's lack of support
• However, the government's pursuit of a harsh punishment played a part in his suicide
• The punishments for committing intellectual property infringement are too severe
• Property infringement occurs so commonly that the repercussions are excessive

On January 11, 2013, Aaron Swartz was found dead in his New York City apartment, as a result of a suicide that was caused by the possibility of excessive prison time. 

Aaron Swartz, an advocate of open access, believed that information should be accessible to everyone. He held the idea that information was power and that everyone should have the opportunity to obtain that power. In 2010, Swartz allegedly gained access to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) computer network after sneaking into one of the school's closets and downloaded millions of academic journals from the database JSTOR.

On January, 2011, Swartz was arrested on charges that all involved illegally downloading academic journals from JSTOR. Although his intentions were unclear, Swartz's friends say that he did not commit the crimes for personal gains, but to make the journals publicly available. These intentions, however, led to a possibility of $1 million in fines, as well as up to 35 years in prison, if he had been convicted. Two years later, on January 11, 2013, Swartz hung himself; many believe that  both the government and prosecutor are to blame for his death. 

MIT's lack of support in the the Aaron Swartz case involving property infringement is believed to be the cause of his suicide. 

Swartz had reportedly long suffered from bouts of depression, and according to his girlfriend of the time , Ms. Stinebrickner-Kauffman, he was having a depressive episode the week prior to his death. She also describes how he was not only concerned about financial issues and his friends being subpoenaed to testify against him, but he became extremely upset when he realized MIT was not going to stand up for him in his case. 

Robert Swartz, Aaron's father, expressed that he was deeply disappointed that MIT did not try to stop the prosecution against his son. MIT President Rafael Reif wrote a message expressing his condolences to the Swartz family, as well as discussing how he would look into whether MIT played a role in the tragedy that was Aaron's death.Even after Reif's message, the Swartz family issued a statement specifically blaming MIT officials and Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office officials  for Aaron's unexpected death. 

According to the Swartz family statement, Aaron's death was "the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach". Many others, including Swartz's friends and those on the online community, also expressed that MIT, along with the prosecution, played a major role in his death. Although there was no suicide note left at the scene of his death, many still believe that Swartz's suicide was driven by the prosecution's bullying tactics and their pursuit of such harsh punishments.

The repercussions for intellectual property infringement are excessive for how commonly the crime is committed, especially among college aged students. 

In an annual report of online trends of copyright violation and piracy statistics done by MIT, it becomes very visible that people, all over the United States and in other countries, commit intellectual property infringement quite often. Most of these violations are due to people trying to share and listen to music for free. According to the report, peer to peer piracy accounts for the majority of traffic across the internet, as well as it accounts for a majority of copyright and piracy issues. Allegedly, like Swartz, people who are breaking these copyright and intellectual property laws do not usually have bad intentions, they are simply trying to distribute goods for everyone, whether it be in the form of educational literature or music. 

As can be seen in the above graph, the report also exemplifies how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology topped all other domestic universities for the overall highest cases of infringements. This report suggests that Aaron was one among many at the university (MIT) who was violating copyright infringement laws. The report also shows that there were about 2,600 cases of digital piracy for MIT in the year 2007, and these are just the cases that were seen by law enforcement, so there are undoubtedly more that law enforcement are unaware of. 

So many people are constantly committing intellectual property infringement, whether it is on purpose or not. As can be seen with peer-to-peer sharing, most infringement cases do not cause much damage, with the exception of financial damage towards the original distributor, who usually already have great financial means. When the majority of people committing these crimes are not even brought to court, and when law enforcement does not care, it is unjust for there to be such harsh repercussions for individuals who are caught for committing these crimes. The consequences for stealing intellectual propety far outweigh the actual damage done. In the case of Aaron Swartz his possible punishment for committing intellectual property infringement was excessive and completely unfair.