Intellectual Property

Abstract

Any form of literature, science, music, film, or computer program can be protected by copyright to prevent third parties from making copies without written permission. Copyright is the law of authorship and dates back to the Statute of Anne (1709) passed in England to protect the rights of authors and publishers from piracy. The law has been progressively elaborated in Europe and North America to grant copyright for a fixed term to the estate of deceased authors and protect authors from the violation of their rights through new technologies of reproduction and exchange. However, the balance between the rights of authors and freedom of information is a delicate one and is regularly subject to legal challenge. In the US the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech and a free press, has been used by litigants as the basis to contest the reach of copyright.