A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow. from IDEALOGUE on Vimeo.

“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind.”

Source: EFF.org

It’s been over 14 years since EFF co-founder and former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow penned the now-famous “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” And since 1996, his words have become even more relevant than they were then:

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

That’s why EFF was excited to see Department of Records issue a special recording of the Declaration of Independence this week. The album, which has been released as a vinyl record, features Barlow reading the Declaration as spoken word, as well as the Declaration set to music by Drazen Bosnjak. It’s both a lovely artifact and a great recording.

See Also – http://departmentofrecords.co/dor1.html

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