At its core the fundamental concepts covered in the documentary, “The Internet’s Own Boy” seem no more complicated than that of “closed” versus “open”, with everything else deriving from this dichotomy. Aaron Swartz seemed unambiguous on which side of the dichotomy he would or could take right from the start, and his work on the likes of RSS, XML and creative commons demonstrates his dedication to an uncomplicated view of an “open” web. In his words, “I want to make the world a better place” (Brian Knappenberger, 2014), but who defines what is better? As exemplified in his idea of the “open library”, bringing “public access to the public domain” and rejection of the more capitalist-focused world of the tech start-up, Swartz seemed to view the world through the singular and pure prism of the open web as envisioned by the likes of Berners-Lee.

Although it exists in its own sphere, however, the web does not exist in a vacuum. It exists within legal and cultural realms, as noted by Lessig, a space where the law treats content as “owned” or not “owned” and where “the owned chases out the unowned” (Lessig, 2002, p. 178). So reading the various elements of the Dáil Chamber on 28 June 1963 leads the reader into various owned and unowned, public and private spaces. Swartz looked to make what was “closed” into something that was “open” but should we realise the inherent tension between these spheres?

Trying to get through the rights and wrongs of the case taken by US authorities against Swartz is most likely a fool’s errand because it is one of human versus institution, and Lessig describes the copyright laws that may well have been infringed as something akin to a “chimera” when he analyses copyright on music and specifically digital music (Lessig, 2005). It is the collision of old world and new, the “physical” and “code” layers. Will we continue to run into roadblocks in trying to achieve digital transformation? Will the lofty ambitions of the semantic web, open and linked data make it easier to “read” every room?