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RIDA 205 | 07-2005

Doctrine

Is literary property (a form of) property ? Controversies on the nature of authors’ rights in the nineteenth century

PFISTER, Laurent

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In the 19th century, the likening of the ownership of intellectual works to property raised significant controversy in France. Opponents of this likening, starting from the premise that ownership only bears on tangible things, developed a contractual and positivist theory of droit d’auteur. On the other hand, a wide-spread liberal trend supported the likening of droit d’auteur to property based on a concept of property combining a subjective (control, dominium) and objective (status of the thing, proprietas) meaning. Often digressing from the legal framework to political, economic and cultural issues, the confrontation of these two schools of thought contributed to the development of the rules of droit d’auteur and particulary to the emergence of the droit moral. It also enlightens current controversies relating to the application of intellectual property to the Internet.