Scurtă retrospectivă a primelor reglementări ale dreptului de autor pe plan internaţional
Brief review of the first rules of international copyright

Summary/Abstract: The copyright and its legal protection became the subject of legislative preoccupation very late, the main cause being the absence of the means to reproduce literary and artistic works. According to Andre Kerever, copyrights appeared following the joint action of a technological revolution (the invention of print) and a cultural revolution (under the sign of freedom and equality) which was political and philosophical at the same time, plus an economic revolution (the capitalism), a climate encouraged in particular by the development of the means of communication. People started to speak about the significance of the moment when print was discovered at the half of the 18th century, when the first regulations started to appear, in a "modern configuration" regarding the protection of the rights of intellectual creations authors. Thus, most European countries start to enact laws regarding the protection of the rights of authors of literary and artistic works, among which we mention those in Prussia (1837), Austria (1846), Romania (1862), Italy (1872), Spain (1879), Hungary (1884), Belgium (1886), Norway (1893), Russia (1896) etc. The expression "copyrights" appeared for the first time during the French Revolution, when Lakanal, the reporter of the French law of 19 July 1793 on literary property, speaks in his Report of a "property over the productions of genius", and Augustin-Charles Renouard is considered the first author who used, in the Treaty regarding the rights of the author in literature, sciences and fine arts, published in 1838, the expression "copyright" to replace the term "property". In the Romanian specialized legal literature, Yolanda Eminescu, quoting Adolphe B. Breulier shows that, once print is invented and begins to be used, "the human genius becomes more productive: new books multiply, the author's work, the bookshop industry become more profitable and, at the same time, the dishonorable job of plagiarists and counterfeit authors becomes more active. All those who, more or less directly, obtain legitimate profit from the intellectual activity, feel the need to resort to social protection" and, at the same time, the authority does not witness impassible the spreading of "this splendid and terrible meteor", but tries to adopt protection measures in favor or against writers, typographers and bookshops.

• Details
• Contents