much for differences, what of similarities? There are rather more of the latter than the proponents of difference are sometimes willing to The similarities between civil and common law copyright start with history. Consider the parallel reactions of Scotland and England in the 18th century to the first great Question of Literary Property, whether copyright in a published work could exist at all outside specific legislation establishing it. That great Question climaxed in the 1770s in the battle between the London stationers-the book publishers of the day-and their nemeses, the Scottish reprinters. The London stationers claimed a perpetual copyright in their inventories, beyond the 28 years maximum protection granted by the Copyright Act of 1710. Both the Scottish and the English courts, looking to Roman law and beyond, ruled against them, dismissing any notion of a common law copyright in published works. An author might have a perpetual incorporeal property in an unpublished work and might prevent its publication or surreptitious copying without his consent. But once published with the owner's authority, the work could be freely copied unless a specific statute protected it (21)When the same point arose in the mid-19th century in the United States, the Supreme Court took the same line as the british courts had in the 1 8th century (22 There are also interesting parallels between the underlying philosophies of the first copyright law of both Britain and france, even though the background politics during the reign of Queen Anne could hardly have been more different those of revolutionary France. The British law, of course, reflects the orientation of the book publishers who pressed for its passage, while in Fran the authors themselves led the charge for reform, with the politically weakened publishers looking anxI The French publishers had earlier argued, through their hired hand Diderot, that a persons ideas were by nature his own since they sprang full-blown unaided from his mind. Some claim this hubristic theory inspired the French authors rights decrees of 1791 and 1793, but this is only partly true. Beaumarchais and his supporters managed to get laws passed that recognized these atural rights only for the author's life plus a short period-5 or 10 years after his death Significantly, not only were these the laws they got they were also the laws the authors and dramatists sought. Their view of authors rights was fundamentally at odds with the perpetual protection that a natural rights theory such as Diderot's implied A nuanced interpretation of these events is suggested by a historian of the period The authors represented themselves as servants of the public good of its enlightenment, in opposition to the private interests of publishers and theater directors. Thus the authors themselves rejected the Diderotist argument for unlimited and absolute claims upon their texts and presented themselves as contributors to 'public property and guardians of the public claim to the nations cultural commons. The author was now depicted as a hero of public enlightenment, ratherIV So much for differences; what of similarities? There are rather more of the latter than the proponents of difference are sometimes willing to admit. The similarities between civil and common law copyright start with history. Consider the parallel reactions of Scotland and England in the 18th century to the first great Question of Literary Property, whether copyright in a published work could exist at all outside specific legislation establishing it. That great Question climaxed in the 1770s in the battle between the London stationers - the book publishers of the day - and their nemeses, the Scottish reprinters. The London stationers claimed a perpetual copyright in their inventories, beyond the 28 years' maximum protection granted by the Copyright Act of 1710. Both the Scottish and the English courts, looking to Roman law and beyond, ruled against them, dismissing any notion of a common law copyright in published works. An author might have a perpetual incorporeal property in an unpublished work and might prevent its publication or surreptitious copying without his consent. But once published with the owner's authority, the work could be freely copied unless a specific statute protected it.(21) When the same point arose in the mid-19th century in the United States, the Supreme Court took the same line as the British courts had in the 18th century.(22) There are also interesting parallels between the underlying philosophies of the first copyright laws of both Britain and France, even though the background politics during the reign of Queen Anne could hardly have been more different from those of revolutionary France. The British law, of course, reflects the orientation of the book publishers who pressed for its passage, while in France, the authors themselves led the charge for reform, with the politically weakened publishers looking anxiously on. The French publishers had earlier argued, through their hired hand Diderot, that a person's ideas were by nature his own since they sprang full-blown unaided from his mind. Some claim this hubristic theory inspired the French authors' rights decrees of 1791 and 1793, but this is only partly true. Beaumarchais and his supporters managed to get laws passed that recognized these 'natural rights' only for the author's life plus a short period - 5 or 10 years after his death. Significantly, not only were these the laws they got, they were also the laws the authors and dramatists sought. Their view of authors' rights was fundamentally at odds with the perpetual protection that a natural rights theory such as Diderot's implied. A nuanced interpretation of these events is suggested by a historian of the period: The authors represented themselves as servants of the public good, of its enlightenment, in opposition to the private interests of publishers and theater directors. Thus the authors themselves rejected the Diderotist argument for unlimited and absolute claims upon their texts and . . . presented themselves as contributors to 'public property' and guardians of the public claim to the nation's cultural commons. The author was now depicted as a hero of public enlightenment, rather