[3] Furthermore, the Dutch Supreme Court has ruled that to be considered a work, it should have its own, original character with the personal imprint of the author (HR 4 January 1991, NJ 1991, 608(Van Dale/Romme)).
[4] This threshold of originality has since been superseded by a decision of the European Court of Justice (C-5/08) and is now "The author's own intellectual Creation".
Historically, governments issued monopolierechten (monopoly-rights) to publishers for the sale of printed work.
Great Britain was the first to change this in 1710 with the Statute of Anne, which stated that authors, not publishers, had the right to claim a monopoly on the work.
The Berne Convention in 1886 was the first multilateral treaty to provide for reciprocal treatment of copyrights among sovereign nations.
Under the Berne Convention the right of ownership (eigendomsrecht in Dutch) was automatically granted to every creative work.