We all worry about plagiarism, which is a type of theft of intellectual property.  But theft of that nature covers a lot of things – any misuse of copyright protected material.  Usually, we think it’s an act of a desperate or lazy person – perhaps a weak or struggling student looking for a quick fix.  That isn’t always the case, though. Recently, a man named Aaron Swartz has been in the news.  An Internet pioneer, Swartz has been involved in developing Rich-Site Summary (RSS) feeds (from which you might be monitoring this blog) and Creative Commons licensing (from which the accompanying photograph, taken by Daniel J. Sieradski, comes), campaigned against the SOPA legislation, and been a prominent defender of civil … Continued