Comment by keeda

But my point it is not an unjust application of the law, the law is specifically structured to treat certain behaviors as worse than others. IMO that is actually fair in theory: We do NOT want to punish people who casually pirate stuff for private use, but we probably do want to punish and deter bad actors who want to profit off of the work of others'.

Aaron Swartz's case was actually neither -- you could say he wanted to "liberate" information for the "public good" -- but unfortunately the law has no provision for that and all his actions were consistent with how the law specifies the bad actor case, which is what escalated things drastically.