Creative Commons and Aaronsw's sweet hack

Cory Doctorow 12:40 am Sat Nov 8, 2014

All over the world today, people are having hackathons in memory of Aaron Swartz, and Creative Commons co-founder Lisa Rein talks about Aaron's role in hacking the law with the Creative Commons licenses.

The weekend’s overall theme? Setting the record straight. In addition to pushing forward his projects into the future, the event aims to shed light on misconceptions about Aaron. That includes why he downloaded large numbers of journal articles from the JSTOR database on MIT’s network, the act that caught the attention of the Secret Service before Aaron took his own life. Director Brian Knappenberger will be present for a Q&A following a screening of Internet's Own Boy.

Like Aaron, we think of hacking as a way of leaving out the negative elements and cherry picking the good parts to create something better. Hacking built the Internet. It’s with this spirit this weekend that we’re commemorating him.

How to Celebrate Aaron Swartz’s Legacy? Go to a Hackathon This Weekend [Lisa Rein/Takepart]

(Thanks, Lisa!)

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