Information and Intellectual Property, including a Proposition for an International Symbol for Released Information

The peculiar historical conditions of our times of accelerated technological change and environmental awareness are demanding a revision of the phenomenon of information. This changing perspective must have, in turn, an impact on the legal theories of intellectual rights. Technology has been a predominant factor in enlarging the availability of information since writing was introduced. Today, new media technology accelerates the pace of this process. Through electronic communication, complex data can now be transmitted almost instantaneously to any part of the world, unrestrained by their previously necessary material supports. Human society already has the technological means to create a worldwide information network designed to create social progress and human understanding. However, a scenario in which all people freely communicate the products of their intellectual endeavors is not likely to become reality in the near future, because technological development has not been accompanied by a change in human values. Thus, although communication technologies have had a positive impact by heightening the social dimension of information, technology alone has not been sufficient to complete the cycle of meaningful social transformation. Only a radical reevaluation of the presently institutionalized conception of authors' rights can provide full use of new communication technology and fulfill the historical cycle. The present legal conception of authorship is founded upon the principle of ownership of intellectual works. However, privately owned information is incompatible with a society whose goal is the full development of data systems aiming at more equitable access to information. Technological development will heighten the already perceptible conflict in which the social right to information opposes authors' rights to control access to their creations. Therefore I advance a fundamental question: Can society

Epistemology · Intellectual property · Political science · Programming language · Property (philosophy) · Proposition · Symbol (formal) · Computer Science · Copyright and Intellectual Property · Law · Philosophy

• Two treatises of government

  John Locke, Ian Shapiro et al.•Two Treatises of Government•1988

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