Well, white collar just means generally "conducted using computers, paper, etc." vs. guns or sticks or fists. So defrauding people via the mail is white collar, or ponzi schemes, etc. There is usually a financial component, but the FBI 30k foot overview is "lying, cheating, or stealing". What aaronsw is alleged to have done was a white collar activity (except that he did sneaky wiring closet stuff), but not what people immediately think of as "white collar crime".
I mostly don't believe what Aaron did was a crime at all. If it was wrong, it was a civil tort against JSTOR or JSTOR's authors, who declined to give a shit (and I suspect most authors in JSTOR would support him). If it was a crime, it was a very minor crime -- not a 35 year federal felony.
I'm sad Aaron is gone, and angry he didn't fight this to the end. He probably could have won, or at least ended up with a suspended sentence or something like that, and this could have been a catalyst for reform of copyright laws (if not general laws, the scientific-papers-created-with-government-funding laws).
There's probably some copyright/ip crime which does have victims, but it's usually civil victims, and in this case, I don't think even that.
(If you hacked in or bribed an employee and a trade secret and started making something in competition after someone spent 30 years researching, there's probably a civil case there)
I mostly don't believe what Aaron did was a crime at all. If it was wrong, it was a civil tort against JSTOR or JSTOR's authors, who declined to give a shit (and I suspect most authors in JSTOR would support him). If it was a crime, it was a very minor crime -- not a 35 year federal felony.
I'm sad Aaron is gone, and angry he didn't fight this to the end. He probably could have won, or at least ended up with a suspended sentence or something like that, and this could have been a catalyst for reform of copyright laws (if not general laws, the scientific-papers-created-with-government-funding laws).