Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900) (Electronic Database of Historical Materials on Copyright from Five Key Jurisdictions)

Project start date: 2005-09

Project end date: 2008-07

Information norms (and in particular the laws of intellectual property) are constitutive of modern societies. An understanding of the sources of these norms is critical to understanding the scope and direction of current laws. The resource relates to key historical documents in the field of copyright, from the invention of the printing press (ca1450) to the blue print of an international author rights regime devised with the Berne Convention of 1886. The focus is on five countries that have shaped the modern concepts of copyright law: Italy (Venice and Rome) (20 documents), France (50), the UK (50), Germany (50), and the US (20). The documents include statutes, materials relating to legislative history, case law, tracts, and commentaries. Provision is made for the inclusion of related documents (without translation or commentary) that assist contextualisation of the core documents. The resource is made available as an electronic database in facsimile and in html transcriptions; non-English texts are translated; each document is marked by keywords and preceded by an editorial head-note, providing context. The database is hosted by the computer facilities of Cambridge University, freely accessible to users everywhere and searchable on-line. Generation of HTML files from XML data for web-delivery, Production of compressed JPEG files from uncompressed TIFF files for web dissemination