Copyright and neighboring rights duration in historical and comparative perspective

Duration has been one of the most debated aspects in the history of authors’ rights over the last three centuries, as can be seen by retracing the main historical-legal turning points that have determined its evolution towards the current structure, and by analyzing the fundamental guidelines and main suggestions from legal science and case law. The Author examines, therefore, the decisive contribution of Locke and Napoleon and that of the international Berne Convention. The history of the duration of authors’ rights and its concrete upward modulation are the result of two opposing and conflicting needs: those of the author and his heirs to obtain the acknowledgment of their legitimate enjoyment of the economic benefits deriving from the intellectual work, and that of the collective cultural heritage which requires the rights authors and their heirs on the economic exploitation of the work to be qualified as rights limited in time. The Author also dwells on the situation in North America, where Canada has always been closer to civil law countries than the United States, characterized by isolationism until the end of the last century, when they decided to adhere to the Berne Convention and to the harmonization with European countries of the term of duration of pma rights.