The Advent of Performing Rights in Europe

The introduction of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century started the process toward copyright in tangible items like books, music scores, CDs, posters, and T-shirts. These products are all private goods in that they are rivalrous and excludable. Once an item has been bought, nobody else can buy it. Broadcast rights, mechanical rights, and blank media levies also appeared as the results of new technologies. The digital revolution and the Internet call for new amendments to the current IPR legislation.