A draft law (a bill) on the regulation of the freedom of the press was presented to the National Assembly in January 1790 by the Abbé Sieyès, the famous statesman and deputy of the Third Estate. As we shall see, in a context of uncertainty and urgency, securing this natural freedom, while preventing its potential abuses, and ultimately promoting useful ideas – for the free individuals but also the free citizens –was a most precious, but difficult, goal to achieve. And this bill, probably linked with Condorcet’s Fragments sur la liberté de la presse in 1776 (f_1776a), certainly succeeded in setting enduring principles in relation to “the offences which can be committed by means of printing”. It is not surprising, in this perspective, that this piece of legislation, subordinated to the implementation of article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), and which was moreover officially intended to be in force for a period of just two years, included only incidental mention of literary property. Nevertheless, as we will conclude, this source is still and often interpreted as reflecting a truly “utilitarian” current within the French copyright or droit d’auteur.