The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Synopsis

This saddening and eye-opening documentary is a portrait of Aaron Swartz – a brilliantly gifted thinker and internet information freedom activist who challenged the power of corporate interests and the state before ending his life at the age of 26 after being charged with fraud for downloading millions of journal articles from a subscription-only online service. Unapologetically partial, the film combines home movie footage of Swartz in his youth with interviews with his friends and family, and experts such as World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee who question the motives of the prosecutors and a pursuit of Swartz that many feel was unwarranted or at best grossly disproportionate.