June 15th 2015 is the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, which limited the powers of England’s king and inspired many a constitution. Ludwig Siegele adapts it to cyberspace

This present charter confirms for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the internet shall be free and open, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired. To all free people of our virtual realm we have also granted, for us and our heirs for ever, all the liberties written out below.

No “scutage” or “aid” on data and networks, even in Bitcoin or Dogecoin, may be levied in our realm without its general consent.

To obtain the general consent of the digital realm for the assessment of an “aid” or a “scutage”, we will cause the Cardinal of Cupertino, the Archbishop of Armonk, the elders of Herzliya, Tech City, Berlin Mitte and Block 71 as well as all greater tech barons, but not Kim Dotcom, to be summoned individually by encrypted electronic mail. The business appointed for the day shall go forward in accordance with the resolution of those present, even if some have appeared via dodgy Skype connections and are wearing inappropriate t-shirts.

Inquests shall be taken only in their proper cyber-court. For a trivial offence, such as posting too many selfies or subtweeting, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence, such as trolling or spamming, correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his internet connection. In the same way, a bankrupt startup shall be spared the implements of its husbandry and its ping-pong table, if it falls upon the mercy of a court.

No town or person shall be forced to build networks except those with an ancient obligation to do so. All networks shall be neutral in perpetuity.

If a free man dies intestate, his Facebook profile, World of Warcraft characters and in-game items and currency, code in GitHub and other personal data are to be distributed to his next-of-kin and friends, under the supervision of a firm’s advisory council.

No cyber-tsar or any one of the Five Eyes (being the intelligence alliance of the West) shall take data or devices from any free man without his consent. No royal official shall take virtual goods for their castle without the consent of the owner.

All intercept devices shall be removed from undersea cables, communications satellites, data centres and routing equipment, except if that device has been approved by a proper court. Prism, Echelon, XKeyscore and other such projects shall be shut down.

There shall be standard measures of connection speed throughout the realm, to ensure smooth streaming of Netflix and lag-free access to online games. There shall also be a standard for cables and wireless connections. In particular, USB connectors shall finally be reversible.

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or files, or outlawed or disconnected, or be deprived of his domain name, nor will we proceed with hacking against him, or send tabloid journalists to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his peers.

All entrepreneurs may enter or leave the realm unharmed and with their laptop, smartphone or other devices untouched, and may stay or move within it for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions. It shall be lawful for all software developers to leave and return to our realm unharmed and without fear, even if they talk at length about agile development and scrums.

All access fees that have been given to us unjustly and against the law of the land, and all fines that we have exacted unjustly, in particular for infringement of copyright and software patents, shall be entirely remitted or the matter decided by a majority judgment of the twenty-five barons referred to below.

If we have deprived or dispossessed any net knight of land or liberties, domain names, Twitter handles or document caches without the lawful judgment of their equals, these are at once to be returned to them.

Keepers of liberties

The tech barons shall elect twenty-five of their number to keep, and cause to be observed with all their might, the peace and liberties granted and confirmed to them by this charter. If we, our chief justice, our chief yahoo, our officials, or any of our servants offend in any respect against any man or woman or 13-year-old wonderkid, or transgress any of the articles of the peace or of this security, and the offence is made known to four of the said twenty-five barons, they shall send a Tweet to declare it and claim immediate redress. If we make no redress within forty days, the twenty-five barons may distrain upon and assail us in every way possible, including denial-of-service attacks and spearphishing, with the support of the whole ecosystem of the land.

Both we and the tech barons have sworn that all this shall be observed in good faith and without deceit. Given by our hand in the area that is called Redwood Shores, between San Francisco and San Jose, on the fifteenth day of June two thousand and fifteen.