For those with short memories, or who were living under a rock at the time hacktavist, writer, organizer and programmer Aaron Swartz died in January, 2013.
At the time of his death, which was ruled a suicide though no note was found, was facing “two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution and supervised release” for the crime of downloading academic papers from an MIT computer without lawful access.
The title of the film (IMDB) comes from a quote by former partner and fellow activist Quinn Norton.
“Less than a week after Aaron died, Brian Knappenberger asked me, on camera, why the reaction to Aaron’s death had been so extreme. Puffy-eyed and broken I told him, “He was the internet’s own boy… and the old world killed him.” This remains, for me, the best encapsulation of this terrible story.”
In honor of Swartz, whose life had been dedicated to free access to information (including work on the RSS protocol, Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Wikileaks and more) the film has been made available for free.
It is now available from the Internet Archive, for download or streaming and as a torrent.