Sem083: Ethics in Cyberspace

Assignment #6: MIT Notables: Richard Stallman & David LaMacchia

Steven Levy's book Hackers concludes with a chapter entitled : The Last of the True Hackers. He is referring to Richard Stallman, inventor of the EMACS editor, creator of the GNU operating system and founder of the Free Software Foundation.

Read at least one of the following of his articles:


In April 1994, MIT junior David LaMacchia was indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, based on the accusation that he had modified an Athena workstation to allow people on the network to use it to download copyrighted software without paying. The case received national notoriety, the US Attorney in Boston calling it the largest incident of software piracy ever. In December 1994, the charges against LaMacchia were dismissed, with the judge ruling that copyright infringement can not be prosecuted under the wire fraud statute. The case raises important issues about liability of system operators and about the scope of computer crime and copyright laws.

Source documents:

News articles

Needless to say, there was a lot of media coverage both at MIT and elsewhere regarding this case. Read the ones marked **** * as well as any others that interest you. Most are brief.

Questions to ponder: