Tomorrow marks the 108th birthday of the great George Orwell, best-known for his satirical novella Animal Farm and his dystopian cult-novel Nineteen Eighty-Four — some of the most poignant pieces of political and cultural criticism ever published. In 1954, five years after the book’s original publication, BBC staged a live television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, starring Peter Cushing and Yvonne Mitchell. The film has now passed into the public domain and is available for free in its entirety online under a Creative Commons license, as well as in a collector’s edition DVD.

In today’s sociocultural context of increasing concerns about privacy, censorship and surveillance, Orwell’s work is more relevant — and more terrifying — than ever, offering a timely warning of the society we might become if we fail to codify, appropriate and regulate the tools and technologies of digital culture, what Jennifer 8. Lee so aptly calls “Little Brother.”