History of Spanish Copyright Law

Jhonny Antonio Pabon Cadavid has published "Approximation to the Copyright History: Normative Antecedents (Aproximación a La Historia Del Derecho De Autor: Antecedentes Normativos)," at 13 Revista La Propiedad Inmaterial 59 (2009). Here is the abstract.

The legal protection of literary and artistic works has been institutionalized since the advent of the printing press. Prior to the copyright system we know today, there was a model of administrative privileges, which was set in the public law; so therefore it turned into an institution called literary property, which is in the private law. This study goes over of the legal protection developments that intellectual works have had, considering an important variety of conditions, regarding factors of spread, changing and understanding of the law notion. Above all we study the European models, to display its subsequent move toward America in the post independence period, with emphasis on the Latin American reception inthe first half of the Nineteenth Century, with a different schemes accord to the philosophical and politics projects of the new American republics. Highlighting the participation of the Colombian José María Torres Caicedo in the formation of the Berne Convention, and the English tradition of privileges placed in Colombia, similar to the Statute of the Queen Anne in the 1710th, which remained until the late Nineteenth Century.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.