Information and Intellectual Property Including a Proposition for an International Symbol for Released Information: SEMION

This article proposes a possible value reorientation of intellectual properly rights and the institution of a logotype to stand for released information. Although today new electronic technology could create a web of knowledge around the planet, widespread distribution of information is restrained by patents and copyrights. Technological development thus intensifies the conflict in which the social right to information opposes individual authors’ rights to control the dissemination or applicability of new knowledge. The article proposes a critical reevaluation of privately owned information. It suggests a reconsideration of the moral rights of authors to support the emergence of human rights regarding the production and preservation of artificial memory and the ethical and epistemological criticism of science itself. The author presents a proposition for an International Symbol for Released Information—SEMION—as a viable option to increase knowledge availability without curtailing authors’ individual freedom.