Abstract

The new Digital Millennium has caused an economic and legal evolution of the concept of copyright. As for publishing, the hottest issues on this subject may be regarded as: a) the wider definition of «publishing product», in comparison with more traditional «literary works» or «books», which takes place for fiscal benefits to publishing enterprises, but also demonstrates the changing in the concept of «creativity» in copyrightable works (once necessarily considered as expression of personality of the author, but nowadays extended to new structure and/or organization of previous materials, not necessarily «per se» original); b) the more restricted area of free use by third parties in the digital environment, also in spite of public libraries (often considered by booksellers or Intellectual Property owners more as competitors than promoters of reading and of book-culture); c) the re-negotiation of royalties with authors - by publishers - for communication of the work on line or by any other different way than paper printing, if such an extensive clause was not yet inserted in the publishing agreement.