Over the past several months I’ve taken a considerable interest in Copyright Reform, Fair Use, Free Culture, and the fight for Internet Freedom. I purchased a copy of Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s cornerstone text, Free Culture and have been reading papers on the subject at every opportunity.
This returned my attention to one of the most prophetic and cautionary pieces ever written on collective freedom – John Perry Barlow’s
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. Written during the infancy of the internet in 1996 by the co-founder of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, The
Declaration warned readers to be ever-vigilant, warning that the governments of the industrial world would continuously work to erode and destroy the liberties afforded to us by the world wide web. At the time of its drafting, Bill Clinton had just signed the Telecommunications Reform Act into law – an act which perpetuated the merging of the largest corporations in the communications industry granting them even greater control of information than ever before.
Barlow has the distinction of being the only person to be inducted into both The Internet Hall of Fame and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And his short but incredibly relevant paper is a pivotal piece of internet history. That’s why I am so honored to have claimed this latest addition to my library.
While poring over the EFF’s deep links, I came upon an article from December of 2014 describing a special limited release from The Department of Records. DOR’s homepage describes its mission, “to preserve cultural artifacts for the collective memory in both the physical and digital worlds.” And the first historical work for their catalog is a recording of John Perry Barlow reading his Declaration.
This special vinyl edition was limited to just 500 copies worldwide and distributed directly by DOR. The 180g album sports a smart minimalist black cover with the title of the work embossed at the center of the jacket.
The gatefold sleeve contains a transcript of the original document and information about the three recordings on the album.
Side A Track 1 features A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace as spoken by John Perry Barlow
Side B Track 1 is A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace (ft. John Perry Barlow) by Dražen Bošnjak
Side B Track 2 is an Instrumental version of A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by Dražen Bošnjak.
DOR kindly offers the album’s contents free to all courtesy of
The Internet Archive.
When I discovered that DOR still had copies remaining for sale, I purchased it for my own archive without a moment’s hesitation. It instantly became the most significant artifact of my cultural custodianship.
You can watch the recording session below. Tune in for an incredible moment of our culture’s history.
