Direitos de autor, da Imprensa à Internet

Copyright Law, From the Printing Press to the Internet. This communication analyzes de evolution of copyright law from the royal printing privileges to the “sacred” literary property. It presents some basic notions of copyright law and then raises some concerns that the challenge of new technologies place to copyright traditional concepts. Moreover, the instruments of European harmonization of copyright law are addressed and a perspective of Internet copyright law is proposed according to which copyright should not be “buried” but at the same time it should not be replaced by some sort of techno-digital property that erases traditional cultural values of copyright law such as, namely, the promotion of authorship and sciences. Moreover, copyright law should play an important role concerning the promotion of the freedom of navigation in the Internet.