This was the first article passed into European law concerning issues of copyright, putting laws in place to govern the reproduction of manuscripts by publishers and writers.  It grants a 21-year copyright term to all works that were already in print and a term of 14 years for all works to follow.  The intended purpose of this law, as very clearly and succinctly stated, was “for the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books.”

    Thus, copyright is founded on principles of encouraging the creation of new works and to promote creativity by the creators of newer properties.  As much as this works in the copyright holders’ favor, there is a disparity between copyright’s original intention and the practices of intellectual and character property owners, especially today.

    My project, and our modern implementation of fair use, hinge upon the ideas in the Statute of Anne of copyright as an incentive for authors to continue to create works.  A part of this incentive is the ability for authors to build upon existing works, given either their pre-association as holder of the work’s copyright, through licensing, or through more contemporary designations (parody, fair use).

    This is key to my project, as a vast section of the YouTube community essentially revolves around building on existing works and modifying them to add their piece of creativity.