The most interesting thing is that the manifesto really walks a fine line. For example, here is one of the most relevant parts:
"We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks."
Now here's the funny thing: The first two arguably aren't illegal or infringing. If something is out of copyright then you can copy it. If you interpret buying a secret database as actually buying the distribution rights to it, neither is that. And if you read it in that context, you can imagine circumstances in which the same could be done to journals in specific circumstances, e.g. as a call for academics or their universities to retain their copyright so that they could do so with authorization, or with the subset of journals that charge for access but still allow liberal redistribution by those who have paid, etc. On the other hand, he's talking about civil disobedience, which implies lawbreaking. It's a conflicted piece.
So you have that, and then you have the fact that he was known to do work on text processing that may require a large corpus of articles for a database, which provides a rational alternative justification for downloading the articles other than to post them to file sharing networks -- or perhaps he intended to do that and also post that subset of the articles downloaded which could legally be posted, either because they're in the public domain or were appropriately licensed.
The point is we don't know, and the prosecution has the burden to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So even if you think it's more likely than not that he would have posted them all to Pirate Bay, do you think so beyond a reasonable doubt? Because if I was on the jury, to me, the above doesn't feel like beyond a reasonable doubt.
"We need to take stuff that’s out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks."
Now here's the funny thing: The first two arguably aren't illegal or infringing. If something is out of copyright then you can copy it. If you interpret buying a secret database as actually buying the distribution rights to it, neither is that. And if you read it in that context, you can imagine circumstances in which the same could be done to journals in specific circumstances, e.g. as a call for academics or their universities to retain their copyright so that they could do so with authorization, or with the subset of journals that charge for access but still allow liberal redistribution by those who have paid, etc. On the other hand, he's talking about civil disobedience, which implies lawbreaking. It's a conflicted piece.
So you have that, and then you have the fact that he was known to do work on text processing that may require a large corpus of articles for a database, which provides a rational alternative justification for downloading the articles other than to post them to file sharing networks -- or perhaps he intended to do that and also post that subset of the articles downloaded which could legally be posted, either because they're in the public domain or were appropriately licensed.
The point is we don't know, and the prosecution has the burden to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. So even if you think it's more likely than not that he would have posted them all to Pirate Bay, do you think so beyond a reasonable doubt? Because if I was on the jury, to me, the above doesn't feel like beyond a reasonable doubt.