From: "Jean-Claude Guédon" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2016 21:15:09 -0400

Of course, Todd, purpose is at the heart of the matter. No quarrel
here. The problem is that attributing purpose to some one is always
tricky.

So, let us agree that the purpose is  not university related, the act
is not performed on U. time, and it is performed outside the U.
network on a non-university computer.

And if some people still want to harass a university while knowing
that it is innocent, as Todd Puccio hypothesizes, then similar kinds
of people may well want to harass a university (or any institution) on
any ground, just for the heck of it, and simply to annoy this
institution. The nature of the action is no longer relevant so long as
it is a potentially illegal action. Example: you drive too fast to go
to a U. meeting and hurt someone. Will the wounded person attack the
university because it is the end cause of the fast driving? In the
case of the downloads, the link is even more tenuous. The illegal
gesture can be connected to the university only because the person
downloading a scholarly article is also a researcher at the
university.  While it is true that people acting as researchers will
download articles, it is not true that people downloading articles,
even if they researchers, act as researchers.

For U. time, I suspect that even US universities do not claim time
over their employees during weekends, official festivals and
vacations. If they do, I am lucky to be working in Canada...


Jean-Claude Guédon

Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal