The Internet's Own Boy

theodp (442580) writes "The Internet's Own Boy, the documentary about the life and death of Aaron Swartz, was appropriately released on the net as well as in theaters this weekend, and is getting good reviews from critics and audiences. Which is kind of remarkable, since the Achilles' heel of this documentary, as critic Matt Pais notes in his review, is that "everyone on the other side of this story, from the government officials who advocated for Swartz's prosecution to Swartz's former Reddit colleagues to folks at MIT, declined participation in the film." Still, writer/director Brian Knappenberger manages to deliver a compelling story, combining interesting footage with interviews from Swartz's parents, brothers, girlfriends, and others from his Internet projects/activism who go through the stages of joy, grief, anger, and hope that one sees from loved ones at a wake. "This remains an important David vs. Goliath story," concludes Pais, "of a remarkable brain years ahead of his age with the courage and will to fight Congress-and a system built to impede, rather than encourage, progress and common sense. The Internet's Own Boy will upset you. As it should." And Quinn Norton, who inadvertently gave the film its title ("He was the Internet's own boy," Quinn said after Swartz's death, "and the old world killed him."), offers some words of advice for documentary viewers: "Your ass will be in a seat watching a movie. When it is done, get up, and do something.""

Comments

His choices...

[damn_registrars]

First, I agree that the data should have been free. I even agree that the investigation into him seemed to be heavy handed.

However, Schwartz made an odd and poor choice in getting to the data. He could have downloaded the data from his own desk in his own office. Instead he went to the library and entered a wiring closet that was clearly not supposed to be open to the public. If he wanted to further his cause, this was a poor choice.

Re:His choices...

[Threni]

He made bad choices, and then reacted extremely badly to the rather predictable consequences. I'm not sure he's much of a poster boy for anything much. It's sad, but I'm not sure what exactly we're supposed to be celebrating here.

Re:His choices...

[inhuman_4]

For sure he made some poor choices.

But that doesn't excuse the government response. The justice department had no reason to act in such a heavy handed manner. They quite clearly wanted to make an example of him and were willing to bend the law to do so.

But the bigger issue here isn't Swartz, it's the fact that this kind of treatment has become common place. Putting a "hacker" in solitary confinement didn't make any sense when they did it to Kevin Mitnik, and it didn't make any sense with Swartz. It's an abuse of power, the tragedy is it took a suicide for people to notice.

Re:His choices...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not for-profit logic. Copyright exists for a legitimate reason, to provide some incentive for people to create things and to distribute them, both of which have real costs in time and effort. That's why it's been around for centuries. The fact that copyright law has been perversely lengthened to ridiculous extremes is a big problem that must be fixed, but it doesn't negate the value of having copyright for much shorter terms. Works need to expire to the public domain, otherwise the people who rely on copyright don't have the same incentive to make new stuff, and the public doesn't get anything for granting a temporary copyright monopoly in the first place. Creators just sit on old stuff and milk it forever.

On top of that, JSTOR isn't even a for-profit operation, which means it is a pretty poor example to choose for a principled stand against current copyright law. A principled way to do it would have been to scan in out-of-copyright journals yourself, or maybe ones that would have been out-of-copyright if the terms hadn't been extended ridiculously (e.g., from the 1930s and 1940s), and then put them up on the web for free. Dare the publishers to sue you. It would take a lot of work to set it up. Guess what? It would also cost money. Web space doesn't come for free, especially if high traffic.

Instead Swartz chose the shortcut of downloading JSTOR's scanned-in archive en masse, despite the fact it violated the license terms for access. JSTOR didn't go all RIAA on him, they just wanted the mass downloads to stop, and MIT was obliged by their license to try to make it stop, efforts that Swartz kept circumventing, culminating in him installing a laptop in a non-public networking closet to do so.

Good principle, bad implementation. None of which justifies the tragedy of how the prosecution was carried out or the tragedy of him committing suicide, but that doesn't absolve him from his own bad choices.

Re:His choices...

[Anonymous Coward]

The feds threat was six months, not 10+ years.

On September 12, 2012, federal prosecutors filed a superseding indictment adding nine more felony counts, which increased Swartz's maximum criminal exposure to 50 years of imprisonment and $1 million in fines.[12][84][85] During plea negotiations with Swartz's attorneys, the prosecutors offered to recommend a sentence of six months in a low-security prison, if Swartz would plead guilty to 13 federal crimes. Swartz and his lead attorney rejected that deal, opting instead for a trial in which prosecutors would have been forced to justify their pursuit of Swartz

Re:His choices...

[Mr. Slippery]

The feds threat was six months, not 10+ years.

Bullshit. Threatening "50 years if you make us go to trial, but if you confess we'll recommend six months but the court can still give you 50 years" is still threatening 50 years. The threat of heavy sentences to get people to waive the right to a trail is an egregious violation of due process and the the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishments.