Intellectual property rights (IPRs) play a pivotal role in modern society but remain strongly contested and controversial. Indeed, the issue of ‘copyright’ has created a “clash of civilizations” between the Anglophone world and Continental Europe. This fight over different ideas of copyright has raged across the channel and across the Atlantic since the late eighteenth century. This book discusses these struggles over IPRs chronologically beginning with early history and taking the story to the modern day.