Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Deene, Joris --- "The Influence of the Statute of Anne on Belgian Copyright Law" [2010] ELECD 505; in Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul (eds), "Global Copyright" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Global Copyright

Editor(s): Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447660

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: The Influence of the Statute of Anne on Belgian Copyright Law

Author(s): Deene, Joris

Number of pages: 8

Extract:

10. The influence of the Statute of
Anne on Belgian copyright law
Joris Deene*

1 GENESIS OF THE FIRST BELGIAN COPYRIGHT
LAW 1886

Researching the influence of the Statute of Anne on Belgian copyright
law is by no means a simple task, as the Kingdom of Belgium as we know
it today had only existed since its declaration of independence in 1830.
Prior to this the areas, which are now designated as Belgium, were always
subject to foreign rule. In this way, in the fifteenth century these areas fell
into the hands of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, until they were
conquered by France in 1795. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 the
country was absorbed into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as
a buffer state against France. With the Belgian revolution of 1830, the
Kingdom of Belgium became an independent constitutional monarchy.
`Belgian' copyright regulation was therefore more a reflection of foreign
regulation, such as, in particular, those of the Netherlands and France.1
In this way, shortly after the unification with France in 1795 under the
arrêté des représentants du peuple of 17 Frimaire IV (19 December 1795),
the French decrees of 1791 and 1793 also came into force in the Belgian
provinces.2 At the end of French oppression, the Belgian provinces came
under the dominion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. William I of


* Research Assistant ­ University of Ghent, Attorney ­ Ghent Bar.
1 For a more detailled survey of the history of ...