than as a selfish property owner .. Authors' property rights were conceived as a recompense for the author's service as an agent of enlightenment through the publication of his ideas. (23) The notion that authorship merits encouragement and reward as a public service but that, shortly after the author's demise, his or her product belongs to the public, is one that is well within the range of ideologies on which copyright initially rested, and can continue to rest, under the common law tradition A recent typical judicial comment, that 'the legislation historically... had two purposes:to encourage disclosure of works for the"advancement of learning", and to protect and reward the intellectual effort of the author(for a limited period of time)in the work, (24) is telling. Delivered in 1986, it was intended as an explanation of a modern copyright law. It could with equal appropriateness, have been directed toward the French decree of 1793 and, indeed, later authors' rights laws So how do matters stand today? One might, in a cynical but straightforward application of the politics of numbers, say that UK copyright law ought to reflect the civilian tradition at least as much as, if not more than, the common law tradition After all, European Directives may be expected to reflect dominant continental European(civil law) interests, to the detriment of(UK)common law interests. This phenomenon would more than counterbalance the expected suppression of Scottish(civilian) interests within a dominant English(common law)domestic copyright law But the modern convergence of the two traditions has deeper and longer roots than this. The source lies in the international framework in which copyright laws have been set since the early 20th century. Their architecture has long been prescribed by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the international treaty which was first concluded in 886 and which has periodically been revised throughout the 20th century. Its title is not now, nor copyright makes the occ in the English ly, the lan of the treaty creates a Union for the protection of the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works. The formula is repeated throughout the Convention. The French language version of the Convention, which prevails in any dispute on interpretation, naturally uses 'droit d'auteur'. The structure of the Convention reflects this french usage The standard story is that the Berne Convention, initially drafted and signed by the major European colonial powers, including Britain, vividly demonstrated then and over the course of the next century how common and civil lawyers could hammer out a comprehensive set of norms that bridged the gap between copyright and authors rights. There is, however, an alternative interpretation of the history of the Convention and its revisions, one that is supported by the actual texts rather than by any need to placate common law jingoist. That reading is that, from the very beginning, civilian concepts of authors' rights dominated the texts of the Berne Convention, and that this feature became ever more prominent with the passage of time and each successive revisionthan as a selfish property owner. . . . Authors' property rights were conceived as a recompense for the author's service as an agent of enlightenment through the publication of his ideas.(23) The notion that authorship merits encouragement and reward as a public service but that, shortly after the author's demise, his or her product belongs to the public, is one that is well within the range of ideologies on which copyright initially rested, and can continue to rest, under the common law tradition. A recent typical judicial comment, that 'the legislation historically . . . had two purposes: to encourage disclosure of works for the "advancement of learning", and to protect and reward the intellectual effort of the author (for a limited period of time) in the work,'(24) is telling. Delivered in 1986, it was intended as an explanation of a modern copyright law. It could, with equal appropriateness, have been directed toward the French decree of 1793 and, indeed, later authors' rights laws. So how do matters stand today? One might, in a cynical but straightforward application of the politics of numbers, say that UK copyright law ought to reflect the civilian tradition at least as much as, if not more than, the common law tradition. After all, European Directives may be expected to reflect dominant continental European (civil law) interests, to the detriment of (UK) common law interests. This phenomenon would more than counterbalance the expected suppression of Scottish (civilian) interests within a dominant English (common law) domestic copyright law. But the modern convergence of the two traditions has deeper and longer roots than this. The source lies in the international framework in which copyright laws have been set since the early 20th century. Their architecture has long been prescribed by the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the international treaty which was first concluded in 1886 and which has periodically been revised throughout the 20th century. Its title is not now, nor has it ever been, the Berne Copyright Convention. The word 'copyright' makes the occasional cameo appearance in the English version of the text but, more significantly, the opening language of the treaty creates a Union for 'the protection of the rights of authors in their literary and artistic works'. The formula is repeated throughout the Convention. The French language version of the Convention, which prevails in any dispute on interpretation, naturally uses 'droit d'auteur'. The structure of the Convention reflects this French usage. The standard story is that the Berne Convention, initially drafted and signed by the major European colonial powers, including Britain, vividly demonstrated then and over the course of the next century how common and civil lawyers could hammer out a comprehensive set of norms that bridged the gap between copyright and authors' rights. There is, however, an alternative interpretation of the history of the Convention and its revisions, one that is supported by the actual texts rather than by any need to placate common law jingoists. That reading is that, from the very beginning, civilian concepts of authors' rights dominated the texts of the Berne Convention, and that this feature became ever more prominent with the passage of time and each successive revision