The Berne Convention

WILL SLAUTER: Periodicals and the Right to Copy: Copyright Exceptions for the Press Before and After the Berne Convention (1886)

Chair: Andrew King

This presentation will explore the history of copyright exceptions for the periodical press in the decades immediately before and after the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886 and subsequent revisions). Comparing national legislation in several European countries and early bi-national copyright treaties as well as the various revisions of the Berne Convention, it will draw attention to contemporary debates about the appropriate rules for the reproduction and translation of contributions to newspapers and other periodicals. Although the history of copyright is most commonly framed as a narrative of expansion over time, the history presented here stresses how in specific national and international contexts there were successful efforts to carve out an explicit right to copy articles from newspapers and other periodicals. Although the broad rights to reproduce material from periodicals found in some of the national statutes and the initial Berne Convention were restricted over time, the history presented here shows how attitudes and practices related to periodical works helped nudge copyright law in specific directions at key moments in its history.

Will Slauter

Will Slauter is a professor of history based in the UFR d’Études anglophones (school of English studies) at Sorbonne Université in Paris. Previously, he taught at Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 and was a member of the Institut universitaire de France (IUF). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities from 2007 to 2009.