You mean copyrighted files produced with public funding which should have never been put in private lockers in first place? How's this not context?
And plugging a pc in an ethernet port doesn't seem to me to be a crime worth neither 6 months or 35 years. In fact, doesn't seem to be more than something worth a small fine, depending on circumstances.
Perhaps not an everyday thing, but far from being something programmers don't do often, i.e. automate something.
The "produced with public funding" thing is a total red herring. The train I ride to work is partially funded by taxes. Does that mean I should refuse to pay for my ticket?
First, you are comparing IP with a service that has a totally different ongoing costs.
Second, I'd imagine you are already paying less for your ticket thanks to partial public funding. Some places have free transport altogether and more often than not it incentives tourism too!
Any work produced with public funding should be available free of charge, there's no way around it really.
Licensing, digitizing, and hosting documents has ongoing costs. And what makes you think you're not paying less for JSTOR articles because the underlying content is partially publicly funded?
Yes it has ongoing cost. No we shouldn't pay to access public research. Not JSTOR, not anyone. Have you checked how much for say a research paper from just 10 years ago ? how's 30 dollars for you ? So you are suggesting it would be even more expensive if it wasn't for partial public funding ?
Then perhaps they are doing a shit job and don't belong, don't deserve to make any money or to function.
Mega upload did a better job hosting data that they are doing. Ditto for wikipedia. For categorizing it there's the community which should be more than enough given that it's the same with or without JSTOR.
Yeah with some peer review and either ad supported, state supported or community supported. Simple fee is too much for something I already paid for. I think paying 5 cents for the bandwidth is perhaps all it could and should ever cost.
Perhaps not an everyday thing, but far from being something programmers don't do often, i.e. automate something.