The international movement to protect literary and artistic property

Abstract

The 1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works sought to harmonize different conceptions of the artist’s rights in his intellectual creation in order to universalize the protection of literary and artistic works. The protection of art as property not only asserted a new relation between art and law, but also engaged another global transformation under way: the coproduction of national and international law. The Berne Convention relied on national legislative sovereignties to fulfill its goal of international protection for an artist’s property. In so doing, the Berne Convention negotiated a new international public domain, in conjunction with which the rights of individual artists would find an internationally protected space.