ABSTRACT
If there was one topic that dominated the agenda of copyright in the late nineteenth century and exemplified like no other the multiple radical transformations of that period, it was undoubtedly the issue of translation, the “international literary question” 1 par excellence. The creation of the Berne Union (BU) was instrumental in helping bring about a lasting revision in the handling of translation, and solidified a new legal regime that can be properly understood as a fundamental change of approach. Translation represented the first act of “transmittance” or “relay” that set the machine of international copyright in motion. Though it would be an exaggeration to claim that the BU was primarily created in order to regulate translation, it is certainly accurate to claim that translation was a top priority in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and dominated the agenda both of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI) and the BU until the final settlement of this question at the Berlin BC revision conference in 1908.
