In class today we discussed the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy, about the life and death of Aaron Swartz. I mentioned that I found it interesting that we could dive deeper into the subject by reading the words of the subjects of the documentary themselves. Some examples:

• Quinn Norton’s post the day after Aaron died.
• Cory Doctrow’s eulogy that day as well.
• Lawrence Lessig responds to the prosecutor a week later.

Fittingly, the documentary itself has been released under a Creative Commons license. There’s nothing in a CC license that prevents the creator from charging for it as well, so the link at the top of this post takes you to several video-on-demand services where you can pay for the documentary. But you can also watch the whole thing on YouTube or download it from the Internet Archive.

And an interesting review I found: Ken White has an interesting perspective on the subject, being both a former federal prosecutor and someone who has suffered from depression.