Directed by: Brian Knappenberger.
Written by: Brian Knappenberger.
Aaron
Schwartz was a computer prodigy, who was working with teams and on projects
that most people his own age – or of any age for that matter – wouldn’t have
the slightest idea about. He was a genius programmer – one of the minds behind
Reddit – and he became rich at a young age. But money didn’t interest him. He
eventually left Reddit – badly – because he didn’t want to use his mind to
simply make money for himself. He was an idealist who thought the internet and
the knowledge it contained should be open to everyone. It’s this belief that
will eventually cause him to do some times that bring the attention of law
enforcement – and Prosecutors who will charge him with a litany of crimes,
which could cost him decades behind bars. Under this immense pressure, Schwartz
eventually snapped, and killed himself. It was a tragic loss of a bright young
mind.
Brian
Knappenberger’s documentary, The Internet’s Own Boy, unsurprisingly is a one
sided documentary firmly in the pro-Aaron Schwartz camp. This is the same filmmaker
who made We Are Legion last year about the “hacktivist” group Anonymous, which
also was firmly in their camp. I thought that in that situation, he could have
been harder on Anonymous than he was. But in this case, I find it hard to
complain too much. Aaron Schwartz didn’t deserve the treatment he got.
What
was Schwartz’s crime that could have landed him in prison for decades? He found
an unlocked server room at MIT, and used it to downloaded thousands of academic
research papers from J-Store – one of the companies who collect all the
academic papers published, and hide them away behind a paywall that most people
don’t have access to. He didn’t do anything with the articles – not yet anyway
– and there’s no real evidence to suggest what he was planning on doing with
them. He had done something similar with court documents earlier – creating an
automated program to download the documents that you have to pay to access. To
Schwartz – and many others – this seems absurd. How can the law not be free for
all in democracy like America? To Schwartz, the Academic papers are similar.
How can the collected knowledge of human kind – which these papers represent –
not be made public knowledge? It’s not like the people who wrote the papers are
getting paid. Just companies like J-Store.
Why
was the government so hell-bent on prosecuting Schwartz? They, of course,
refused to be interviewed for the film, so we’ll never really know for sure –
just like we’ll never really know what Schwartz was going to do with the
articles he downloaded – but it’s easy to make the case that they wanted to
make an example out of him. This was a crime where the victims weren’t really
complaining – J-Store didn’t want a prosecution to go forward, but had no say
in the matter. MIT remained neutral in the matter – which infuriated many, who
think this neutrality goes against what they are supposed to stand for. For the
people in the movie – and I find this hard to disagree with – this should have
been something that was handled internally, without getting the criminal courts
involved. But not to the government. They go after Schwartz hard – and when he
refuses to accept a plea – they go even harder.
The
Internet’s Own Boy is a tragic story. To a certain extent, Schwartz brought the
attention on himself. He knew what he was doing what not exactly legal – but he
didn’t expect the reaction he got. Still, how anyone can argue that what he did
deserved the charges filed against him by the government is beyond me. Why
should people have to pay for access to the law, or access to Academic papers?
This are fairly basic things. He wasn’t downloading movies or music so he
didn’t have to pay; he wasn’t making any money off what he was doing. He wanted
knowledge to be free. And what about that is wrong exactly?
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