“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?”

The quote is from Henry David Thoreau, and it begins the film, The Internet’s Own Boy.

In observance of International Open Access Week, please join us to watch a one-hour cut of the film with a discussion of the issues it presents, facilitated by Professor David Olson of the BC Law School. The film is a thought-provoking documentary about Aaron Swartz, the computer prodigy who, as a teenager, helped make possible the widely-used Creative Commons licenses and was an influential activist for open access. Legal action was brought against him for connecting his computer to the MIT system and downloading portions of the JSTOR database. He committed suicide; many have suggested that this was a result of prosecutorial overreach.

Professor Olson is an associate professor at Boston College Law School. He teaches, researches and writes about copyright law and came to Boston College from Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.

Pizza and soda will be served. Please register, so that we can estimate food amounts, but, if you forget to register, please feel free to join us anyway.

This event is sponsored by the Boston College Libraries in celebration of International Open Access Week.