John Perry Barlow was born on a ranch near Pinedale, Wyoming on October 3, 1947. He received a bachelor's degree in comparative religion from Wesleyan University in 1969. He joined the Grateful Dead as a nonresident lyricist in the early 1970s. He contributed to about 30 Grateful Dead songs including Estimated Prophet, Cassidy, The Music Never Stopped, Mexicali Blues, and Hell in a Bucket.
In 1972, after his father's death, he returned to Wyoming to manage the family's ranch and remained there for almost 20 years. He became a leading defender of an unfettered internet. He championed the right to speak freely on the web and the right to know all the information that it offers. He founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, both in San Francisco. His memoir, Mother American Night: My Life in Crazy Times written with Robert Greenfield, was published in 2018. He died on February 7, 2018 at the age of 70.
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