BRYAN SATALINOUpdate (December 5): Yesterday, the Court of Bogotá confirmed its former ruling that Diego Gomez did not commit a crime in sharing the master’s thesis of another researcher online, reports the blog of Colombian civil society organization Karisma Foundation. “Today we celebrate that justice was done in a case that is now known worldwide and that showed the serious consequences of unbalanced copyright laws,” Karisma Foundation Director Carolina Botero says in the post (translated by Google).
After three years of court proceedings in Colombia, a judge in Bogotá acquitted a graduate student yesterday (May 24) of charges he violated copyright law by sharing another researcher’s master’s thesis online for a study group. If he had been found guilty, 29-year-old Diego Gomez could have faced years in prison.
“This case must spark a serious debate over the necessity of Open Access,” Carolina Botero, director of an organization called Fundación Karisma, which has been helping Gomez with his legal case, said in a press release sent to The Scientist. “Today we celebrate that justice was made in an absurd case that could have set a bad precedent for access to knowledge in Colombia.”
Gomez was studying biology at the University of Quindio in ...
