Abstract
As an effect of industrial and technological development during the 19th and 20th Century technologies such as telegraphs, photography, railways, the telephone, the car, electricity, the phonograph or airplanes became objects oflaw and legal cases. These technologies challenged some fundamental concepts of law. The article focuses on the legal context of Switzerland and especially the Integration ofnew technical devices into Copyright laws and argues that law is reluctant to conceptual change: new technologies are integraled into old esthetic concepts. In the 1950s and 1960s a change in the pereeption oftechnology byjurists can be observed: Whilesome voiees arguefor a new Interpretation of old traditions, others eritieize the undermining of law by technology.
Dommann, Monika