Following the screening of The Internet’s Own Boy – The Story of Aaron Swartz at the Frontline Club, director Brian Knappenberger, speaking via Skype, began by charting the genesis of the film. Engaging with hackers and hactivism through his previous project, We Are Legion, which screened at the Frontline Club in 2012, Knappenberger described how he was exposed to the outpouring and frustration that came from the death of Aaron Swartz who committed suicide following a two-year investigation by the US government.

“I was on a panel the week after Aaron died, everyone there knew him… had a personal story about him, and it was right at the very beginning of this tsunami of grief and anger and frustration that was coming out of the internet.”

While Swartz foresaw the revelations of the NSA’s surveillance programme, for Knappenberger, “one of the great tragedies is that we don’t have [Aaron] for this debate … on the topic of both government surveillance and big corporations… but I think
he would have been a big part of that discussion and the debate going on right now in Europe over the right to be forgotten.”

Touching on the subject of net neutrality, Knappenberger cited Tim Berners-Lee’s decision not to monetize the web as fundamental to its emergence and development, whilst at the same time acknowledging that over the past couple of years the issue has become of concern to a significant proportion of the online community.

“There’s no question [Aaron] would have fought it. We should all be fighting it. It’s important to anybody who spends any time online that the internet should be fair, it should be a level-playing field and everyone should have equal access. It’s the source of all technical innovations, everything we love comes from the notion that it’s free, that the platform is fair and which ensures that my political message wins on merit. But this critical notion is under threat in the United States.”

However, despite efforts made by the online community and some US politicians, most notably with the drafting of Aaron’s Law to reform and redefine computer and digital copywrite abuses, there has been little legislative success since Swartz’s death.

“There’s a big disconnect in our legislative bodies when it comes to these issues. As the saying goes – it’s NO longer OK to NOT understand the internet – or to not understand the things you are legislating. The internet is not some far off distant home of geeks and hackers… it’s the place where we all live, so everything we care about: freedom of speech, the right to assemble, the right to protest, the right not to be monitored or searched by our government without due process, all of these things have new meaning in the internet age and if you are in Congress you need to understand the internet and technology.”

Aaron’s Law itself has recently stalled, as Knappenberger suggests because big tech companies in the US decided that the current CAFA Law which was written in the 1980s suits their objectives. It allows them to go after their smaller competitors and even their own employees if they are seemed to have taken information that is of value to the corporation.

“The law is so big, so broad and vague and that it basically encompasses everybody. It’s an absurd law and is a sign of the disconnect between congress and reality.”

For Knappenberger, this disconnect is best illustrated by the attitude of the federal prosecutors towards Swartz. They were “baffled and confused” by his motives, unable to comprehend that anyone would download millions of pages of academic journals with no intent to profit from it. This demonstrates how the traditional boundaries of what constitutes a criminal action have been distorted in the internet age and as such the law must reflect this.

Thanks @knappB for powerful documentary on @aaronsw and Q&A time (my q on changed govt awareness) pic.twitter.com/ryjkyDEZit

— Andy Piper (@andypiper) August 27, 2014

In the closing lines of the film, Knappenberger described Swartz as a very real victim of this tension being played out between the new digital domain of the internet and the old ‘analogue’ world that is fighting to contain and define it.

“Aaron was the Internet’s own boy… and the old world killed him.”

The Internet’s Own Boy will be released in cinema’s across the UK by Kaleidoscope Film Distribution

View a recent New York Times Op-Doc by Brian Knappenberger on the importance of understanding the Internet.

As a teenager, programming prodigy Aaron Swartz took the Internet community by storm. His intellect and understanding matched its most seasoned members. Today, his fingerprints are all over the Internet, from his help in the development of the basic Internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit. But Swartz’s groundbreaking work in social justice, combined with his aggressive approach to information access ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare, with fatal consequences.

In 2011 and 2012, he was indicted by prosecutors who charged him with a staggering number of felonies. Swartz found himself facing 35 years in prison, and at the age of 26 was found dead in his apartment, from an apparent suicide. The Internet’s Own Boy tells the personal and moving story of what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

Directed by Brian Knappenberger
Duration: 105′
Year: 2014

The Internet’s Own Boy will be released in cinema’s across the UK by Kaleidoscope Film Distribution

Tuesday 30 July 2013, 7:00 PM – Side by Side

For almost one hundred years there was only one way to make a movie: photochemical film. Over the last two decades a digital process has emerged to challenge this initial form of filmmaking. At a moment when digital and photochemical filmmaking coexist, Side by Side explores what has been gained, what is lost, and what the future might bring.

Tuesday 6 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Pirate Bay: Away from Keyboard

The largest and most famous torrent website in the world, The Pirate Bay, quickly became one of many antagonists of the entertainment industry. The three Swedish founders face $13 million in damage claims by the media establishment. TPB-AFK chronicles a historic drama beyond the copyright debate and tells a human story torn by cyberwar.

Tuesday 20 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Human Scale FULLY BOOKED

The Human Scale: it’s a ticking time bomb. In the next 40 years the number of people living in cities will nearly double. There is not enough time to build the necessary infrastructure to accomodate all of us. According to revolutionary Danish city planner Jan Gehl, even the largest of megacities must be re-thought, re-designed and re-sized to the human scale.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Andreas M. Dalsgaard

Tuesday 27 August 2013, 7:00 PM – Google and the World Brain FULLY BOOKED

Google and the World Brain connects the central story of Google Books with fundamental issues related to the Internet – privacy, copyright, data-mining, downloading and surveillance. Through interviews with experts from across the world we learn about the implications of one of the most ambitious and simultaneously controversial projects ever conceived on the Internet.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Ben Lewis.

Tuesday 3 September 2013, 7:00 PM – Rewind This! BOOK NOW

Home video changed the way the world consumed films. Low cost equipment and the rise of VHS created unprecedented opportunities for the film industry. Rewind This! looks at media consumption, zero budget filmmaking, unchecked global piracy and an exploding film industry, through the rise and fall of VHS. Developments that laid the foundation for today’s digital culture.

Tuesday 30 July 2013, 7:00 PM – Side by Side

Tuesday 6 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Pirate Bay: Away from Keyboard

Tuesday 20 August 2013, 7:00 PM – The Human Scale BOOK NOW

[vimeo clip_id=”67638874″ width=”400″ height=”225″]

Tuesday 27 August 2013, 7:00 PM – Google and the World Brain BOOK NOW

Tuesday 3 September 2013, 7:00 PM – Preview: Rewind This! BOOK NOW

The largest and most famous torrent website in the world, The Pirate Bay, quickly became one of many antagonists of the entertainment industry. The three Swedish founders face $13 million in damage claims by the media establishment. Director Simon Klose followed them between 2008 and 2012, offering a glimpse into secret worlds, like a subterranean data bunker, all glass and chiseled rock.

Unified less by a shared ideology than by an often juvenile humour and disdain for the establishment, the three main players are put on trial for copyright infringement. Spokesman Peter is happy to defend their site under freedom of speech grounds, while Fredrik and Gottfrid are in it for the technological challenges.

TPB-AFK chronicles a historic drama beyond the copyright debate and tells a human story torn by cyberwar. Klose tells the inside story of how a cluster of hacktivists built the internet’s largest filesharing site, challenged the entertainment industry and helped shape the debate about intellectual freedom.

Directed by Simon Klose
Duration: 81′
Year: 2012

This screening is part of a summer season looking at the way technological changes are shaping the way we document the world and interact with it. See the full programme here.

In 1937 H.G. Wells predicted the creation of the “World Brain” – a giant global library that contained all human knowledge, which would lead to a new form of higher intelligence. Seventy years later the realisation of this dream seemed to be underway, as Google started scanning millions and millions of books for its Google Books website. With over half these books still in copyright, authors and publishers across the world launched a campaign to stop Google. Climaxing in a New York courtroom in 2011.

In Google and the World Brain, director Ben Lewis connects the central story of Google Books with fundamental issues related to the Internet – privacy, copyright, data-mining, downloading and surveillance. Through interviews with experts from across the world, we learn about the implications of one of the most ambitious and simultaneously controversial projects ever conceived on the Internet.

Directed by Ben Lewis
Duration:
 89′
Year: 2013

For more information about the film you can go to the official website or like the facebook page.

This screening is part of a summer season looking at the way technological changes are shaping the way we document the world and interact with it. See the full programme here.

In 2010, WikiLeaks and its sources used the power of the internet to usher in what was for some a new era of transparency, and for others the beginnings of a new information war. Julian Assange. Bradley Manning. Collateral murder. Cablegate. WikiLeaks. These people and terms exploded into the public consciousness by fundamentally changing the way democratic societies deal with privacy, secrecy, and the right to information, perhaps for generations to come.

Academy Award winner Alex Gibney tells the story of what happens when an incredibly small group of people decide to break open the intelligence vaults of the most powerful nations on the planet. We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks explores how this enormous trove of classified US data was leaked and the impact the documents have had on international events.

Directed by Alex Gibney
Duration: 130′
Year: 2012

On the Internet, their voices are skillfully shielded, but the famous bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan and Farnaz Seifi aren’t afraid of the dictatorial regimes in their respective home countries of Cuba, China and Iran. With indefatigable determination, they keep people around the world informed about the abuses taking place in their countries.

Director Barbara Miller follows these brave young rebels on their dangerous journey. She traces their use of social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to denounce and combat human rights and freedom of speech violations in their countries.

It is not surprising that these fearless women were named among the world’s most influential people by TIME magazine, but will they ever achieve the equality that they so desperately want when there are still thousands of similar voices in prison or under house arrest?

Directed by Barbara Miller
Duration: 96′
Year: 2012