You make some good points, but there is a big difference between your examples and what happened at MIT. One of those differences is harm. MIT pays a yearly fee to get these electronic databases for its library. Most universities will give the general public access to their library without question. That resource may be UserID authenticated or may be location authenticated. If its the latter, he would have been perfectly fine accessing it while on MIT's campus. JSTOR is located at MIT, so the university may just get blanket access. Unless you are at a university, it is hard to understand the level of openness that the school fosters as part of its existence. It is a far cry from a corporate setting where you would not have access to anything that you didn't actually need.
I also think its an error to equate MIT with the average family when it comes to the level of resources each has to mount an offensive. MIT has the money to fight this legally if they thought they needed to. So does JSTOR.
Another point to think about is that this case will do nothing good for JSTOR or MIT. At best they will get nothing out of it. At worst, this will give them a black eye in the academic community. This is the kind of thing faculty don't like to hear about when they are visiting other campuses. On the other had, the US Attorney General is a politician. This case will show he/she is tough on "computer criminals", no matter how it turns out.
Your analogy isn't quite correct. The right analogy would be that you invite someone into your home, and then they go into a part of the house that you don't want them in. Its not really breaking and entering because you invited them in. Most universities invite the public in all the time, it goes with being an open learning space. I can also tell you that the number of non university technicians coming and going from network closets is substantial. We ALWAYS have contractors working on campus, and I quite often see normally locked doors propped open.
Its also not theft. At least not of materials. He didn't take anything physical. At most he fraudulently used a service he wasn't suppose to. Also remember that JSTOR and MIT didn't press charges, which is probably why the only things he was charged with are crimes not requiring a victim's complaint.
You make some good points, but there is a big difference between your examples and what happened at MIT. One of those differences is harm. MIT pays a yearly fee to get these electronic databases for its library. Most universities will give the general public access to their library without question. That resource may be UserID authenticated or may be location authenticated. If its the latter, he would have been perfectly fine accessing it while on MIT's campus. JSTOR is located at MIT, so the university may just get blanket access. Unless you are at a university, it is hard to understand the level of openness that the school fosters as part of its existence. It is a far cry from a corporate setting where you would not have access to anything that you didn't actually need.
I also think its an error to equate MIT with the average family when it comes to the level of resources each has to mount an offensive. MIT has the money to fight this legally if they thought they needed to. So does JSTOR.
Another point to think about is that this case will do nothing good for JSTOR or MIT. At best they will get nothing out of it. At worst, this will give them a black eye in the academic community. This is the kind of thing faculty don't like to hear about when they are visiting other campuses. On the other had, the US Attorney General is a politician. This case will show he/she is tough on "computer criminals", no matter how it turns out.