John Perry Barlow - Writing

Writing

From 1971 until 1995, Barlow wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead, mostly through his relationship with Bob Weir. Among others, Barlow's songs include "Cassidy" (about Neal Cassady and Cassidy Law), "Estimated Prophet", "Black-Throated Wind", "Hell in a Bucket", "Mexicali Blues", "The Music Never Stopped", and "Throwing Stones".

His writings include "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace", which was written in response to the enactment of the Communications Decency Act in 1996 as the EFF saw the law as a threat to the independence and sovereignty of cyberspace. He argued that the cyberspace legal order would reflect the ethical deliberation of the community instead of the coercive power that characterized real-space governance. Since online "identities have no bodies," they found it inappropriate to obtain order in the cyberspace by physical coercion. Instead ethics, enlightened self-interest and the commonwealth were the elements they believed to create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. Later, articles such as "The Economy of Ideas" were also widely circulated in providing a vision for human creativity online.

Barlow has written extensively for Wired magazine, as well as The New York Times, Nerve, and Communications of the ACM. In his writings, he explained the wonder of the Internet. The Internet to him is more than a computer network. It is a place that he called an "electronic frontier". "He frequently wrote in language that echoed Henry Stanley's African diary. "Imagine discovering a continent so vast that it may have no end to its dimensions. Imagine a new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust, more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs enough to exploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate that expands with development. Imagine a place where trespassers leave no footprints, where goods can be stolen infinite number of times and yet remain in the possession of their original owners, where business you never heard of can own the history of your personal affairs."" He has wanted to encourage and provoke youngsters to explore the cyberspace through his writing.

Barlow has also returned to writing lyrics, most recently collaborating with The String Cheese Incident's mandolinist and vocalist Michael Kang, including their song "Desert Dawn." Barlow is often seen at String Cheese Incident concerts mixing with the fans and members in the band.

He has also recently collaborated with the Chicago-based jamband Mr. Blotto on their release Barlow Shanghai. He is an advisor to the Hypothes.is project.