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DALLOZ
GENERAL JURISPRUDENCE
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PERIODICALLY ARRANGED CASE BOOK. – 1903
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FIRST PART – COURT OF CASSATION.
      CIVIL LAW CHAMBER. 25 June 1902. - 1º, 2º, 3º and 4º Joint estate,
acquests, personal assets, literary and artistic property, nature of this property,
musical works, dissolution of community, total estate to be divided – literary and
artistic property, characters, musical works, author’s rights, modification,
suppression.

      The right to exclusively exploit the proceeds of a literary or artistic work
(in this particular case, of a musical score), reserved by law to the author of that
Work, and, after his decease, to his family, for a limited time, constitutes a property
[bien] which can be traded and which is, from then on, in the absence of any legal
provisions to the contrary, subject to the general rules of the Code Civil, insofar as
these are compatible with the particular nature of this right (1);
      In particular, the financial advantages attached to the exploitation of a work
of the mind form, in a regime of community of acquests, according to the terms of Art.
1498 of the Code Civil, part of the assets of joint estate as the proceeds of the
married couple’s industry, for the same reason as the profits which result from an
industrial or commercial enterprise (2);
      Consequently, after the dissolution of a community of acquests, the total estate
to be divided [la masse partageable] should, in the absence of a clause to the contrary
in the marriage contract, also comprise the monopoly of exploitation attaching to the
works published by one or the other of the spouses during the conjugal union (3);
      However, the pooling [mise en commun] of this emolument cannot derogate from
the right of the author, which is inherent in his very personality, to subsequently
make modifications to his creation, or even to suppress it, provided that he
is not at all acting with the aim of causing vexation to his former spouse, or to
the latter’s representatives (4).

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