Historical Development of Author’s Interests

To start off the conference, we will begin by exploring how the interests of authors developed historically and when and how they were codified in law. Katharina de la Durantaye will focus on aspects of copyright law. Long before the emergence of modern copyright law, they were acknowledged by social norms, for example in Ancient Rome. The research of Jane C. Ginsburg shows that Vatican printing privileges, despite what is generally assumed, were not exclusively given to printers in the 16th century, but to authors as well. Even in the age of papal printing privileges, authors’ interests enjoyed at least partial legal recognition.

Lecture 16th Century Papal Printing Privileges
Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg (Columbia Law School, New York)

Lecture The Protection of Literary Authorship in Ancient Rome – Lessons for Today?
Prof. Dr. Katharina de la Durantaye (Faculty of Law, Humboldt University Berlin)

Response: Katharina Hacker (author, Berlin)

Discussion: Katharina Hacker, Prof. Dr. Katharina de la Durantaye, Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg

Prof. Dr. Katharina de la Durantaye, LL.M. (Yale), Law (Humboldt University, Berlin), is a professor for private law at Berlin’s Humboldt University, in particular international private law and comparative law, and her work forcuses primarily on issues of copyright. Her doctoral thesis focused on the protection of literary property in Ancient Rome, and was published by Mohr Siebeck in 2005. Her book Allgemeine Bildungs- und Wissenschaftsschranke will be published as an open access document in March and appear in a print version published by MV Wissenschaft. She directs Humboldt Law Clinic Internetrecht.

Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, Law, Columbia Law School, New York, NY, Is Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at Columbia Law School in New York. An expert on American copyright law and international intellectual property law, her current research is on the issuing of Vatican printing privileges to writers in the 16th century.

Katharina Hacker, author, Berlin, Literary advisor Fiktion, lives as a freelance writer in Berlin. She studied philosophy, history, and Jewish studies in Freiburg and Berlin. Her work includes fiction and non-fiction and translations from the Hebrew. Her novel Die Habenichtse was published in 2006 was awarded the Deutscher Buchpreis. Hacker is a literary advisor for Fiktion e.V.