Martin Michaels
Director Brian Knappenberger has raised more than $43,000 from more than 642 contributors to fund a documentary about the life of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide in January after an intense police investigation into his online activities.
Utilizing online crowdfunding site, Kickstarter, the director seeks to raise an additional $32,000 in just under a month, relying upon small donations of as little as $1 from hundreds of average citizens to fund the project, currently titled, “The Internet’s Own Boy.”
The Los Angeles-based director recently completed “We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists,” a documentary about the global hacker group Anonymous. His newest project will reportedly depict Swartz’s early emergence on the hacktivist scene, his interest in politics and his free speech advocacy. Both projects offer viewers a rare glimpse of underground internet hacktivist communities.
Among hackers, Swartz was an admired figure known by many as a strong proponent of file sharing and the decentralization of copyrighted materials.
Before his suicide in January 2013, Swartz published his “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto,” a lengthy document outlining his strong belief in information sharing. He called information sharing a “moral imperative,” which the 26-year-old believed must be upheld as a constitutionally-protected form of free speech.
He went so far as to advocate for “civil disobedience” against copyright laws pushed by corporations “blinded by greed,” which he claimed were leading to the “privatization of knowledge.”
His advocacy lead to his arrest by a federal agent in January 2011 on state breaking-and-entering charges in connection to his downloading and sharing millions of academic journal articles from JSTOR, a database used by colleges and universities.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) pressed charges against Swartz for allegedly using the MIT computer network to carry out the action. The Internet activist maintained that he had legal access to the online articles.
Federal prosecutors eventually charged Swartz with two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. If convicted, he would have faced more than 10 years in prison.
Swartz’s alleged attack on the MIT JSTOR database will be one of the main events touched upon in the film. The reason for his suicide by hanging roughly two years later is still largely shrouded in mystery because did not leave a suicide note.
The public could have the rare opportunity to learn more about the tumultuous final years of Swartz’s life in the upcoming biopic, which will be widely available on the Internet. Knappenberger hopes to complete the film by the end of 2013 and expects the full project to cost roughly $175,000.