THE CRIMINAL APPROPRIATION OF THE AUTHOR IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES: CENSORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND

Abstract

The author does not appear in law, at first, as a holder of patrimonial or moral rights over his work. Before being an owner, the author appears as a threat, as a possible transgressor who must be controlled and eventually punished. This thesis is defended by Michel Foucault in a conference given in 1969, in which he explores the theme and sustains the precedence of the criminal appropriation of authors over the civil one. In this article, we seek to evaluate this brief consideration by the French philosopher through a deeper historical investigation, centered on French and English law in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this investigation, the focus will be directed to the practice of prior censorship and to the system of royal privileges. It is argued that this regulatory model, centered on repression and corporate and state control, enters into crisis in the 18th century, in the context of the emergence of disciplinary devices, when a new legal arrangement is constructed. Instead of a transgressor, the author becomes, within modern law, above all, an owner. Thus, this study concludes, in general lines, by affirming the success of Foucault's thesis.