Even good people fuck up. Aaron committed crimes and got himself in trouble. Aaron then killed himself. There are many people who could have done things differently to prevent this from happening but why should we point fingers?
JSTOR, the offended party, sorted it all out with Aaron out of court. It was an issue of copyright infringement, not theft, but Ortiz characterised it as such. She decided to pursue it out of some misguided and rabid attempt at sticking Aaron's head on a pike a a warning to others, and to make her CV look good.
There are fingers to point, and they need to be pointed in the right direction.
Interesting take, but as with much of Ayn Rand's work, fundamentally flawed. An idea can be had independently. The idea if a computer was independently conceived upon in the UK and in Germany at around the same time. Intellectual Property laws weren't needed to "protect" the idea.
All that I really being said is that the person who comes up with an idea should be properly compensated. You don't need IP laws to do that. Many businesses agree - they file patents for inventions for their employees, and pay them a wage (and possibly a bonus).
