Direito Autoral e Desenvolvimento Social:

The present article sought to discuss how the emergence of the contemporary notion of intellectual property and copyright impacts the relationship between social and scientific development in different countries. To this end, a historical review of the notion of property was employed as the methodology, bringing the origin of the legislation related to the protection of intellectual property in Brazil and in the world, as well as the concepts of social development and scientific development. Finally, the article brought reflections on how the transformation of contemporary authorial production allows a greater focus on collective social well-being, not just on individual interest. The present study allowed us to infer that, if on the one hand the recognition of intellectual property and copyright were created with the objective of promoting new creations and protecting the rights of authors, on the other hand, the imposition of barriers to the diffusion of new scientific and technological discoveries by developed countries contributes to the maintenance of deep divergences between the level of social development achieved by these nations in comparison to developing countries.