We Want Royalties! Balzac, Dickens, Manzoni e il diritto d'autore

Abstract

The article aims to describe a fragment of the history of literature related to copyright, an issue that is now again on the agenda after the arrival of digital technology, which has raised further aspects and considerations. It was during the 19th century that the concepts of 'author' (understood as the owner of the work) and 'copyright' began to emerge and were also discussed in the legal sphere. Essential is the intervention of some of the great intellectuals of the period, including Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac and Alessandro Manzoni, who kept the public's attention on the issue alive through newspaper articles and paragraphs in novels dedicated to anal-yses of the literary market and literary piracy.