Manifestos & announcements · 1996
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
Davos, Switzerland · 8 February 1996
John Perry Barlow’s 1996 declaration, written at Davos, that governments have no sovereignty over cyberspace.
Read the text The whole poster as a web page
- Print from
- A3
- License
- Redistribution invited by the author
- Source
- eff.org
- Retrieved
- 27 September 2026
- Language
- English
- Rights holder
- John Perry Barlow, 1996
Theme
Download
- A seriesPrints at A0, A1, A2 or A3
- 50 × 70 cm
- 60 × 80 cm
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Print from A3: the smallest A size at which the body text is at least 8 pt.
Wallpaper
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Edition
The text published by EFF, where Barlow’s page ~barlow/Declaration-Final.html now leads. The e-mail that sent it on 9 February 1996 (w2.eff.org, see license.note) differs in one sentence, “They are based on matter, There is no matter here.”, and has a space before two full stops. The byline “by John Perry Barlow” is the author line of the header and the title of the page is the title of the poster; the place and date end the text, as on the page, and give the kicker.
Rights
If you find it useful, I hope you will pass it on as widely as possible. You can leave my name off it if you like, because I don’t care about the credit. I really don’t.
From the e-mail in which Barlow sent the Declaration on 9 February 1996 (Subject: A Cyberspace Independence Declaration), archived by EFF at https://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Internet_censorship_bills/barlow_0296.declaration; it goes on: “But I do hope this cry will echo across Cyberspace, changing and growing and self-replicating”. The site policy of EFF, https://www.eff.org/copyright, puts “original material on the EFF website” under CC BY 4.0 but adds that “All material that is not original to EFF may require permission from the copyright holder to redistribute”: the poster relies on Barlow’s own permission.
