Introduction One of the main contentious points when artificial intelligence, deep learning or machine learning (for the distinction between these functionalities, see here) are used for generating creative works is the question of attribution of works to an author, usually a human who has used the tech tool with some level of involvement in the…

On 20 April 2023, the Italian Civil Court of first instance of Florence (Tribunale civile di Firenze) issued a decision that held unlawful the reproduction by lenticular technique of the image of Michelangelo’s David and its juxtaposition with the image of a male model on the cover of GQ magazine. The reproduction was not authorized…

The Italian Antitrust authority (AGCM) has launched an investigation to assess whether the conduct of META towards SIAE, the largest Italian copyright collecting society, is unlawful due to abuse of economic dependence (for a previous post on the copyright dimension of the META v. SIAE dispute, see here). Let’s start with the background. META and…

The removal of SIAE’s repertoire from Meta’s social networks “This song is currently unavailable” or “The audio track in your reel is no longer available. You can replace the audio track once, which will also remove any original audio in your reel”. These are some of the messages appearing on Instagram or Facebook to users…

In late 2022, the Court of Venice issued an interesting order restraining the use of the image of a well-known piece of Renaissance art by Leonardo da Vinci: the Study of the Proportions of the Human Body in the Manner of Vitruvius, also known as the Vitruvian Man.[1] The artwork is held by the Italian…

On 30 December 2022, the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) issued an order that intervened again on the interpretation of the quotation exception under Article 70 of the Italian Copyright Act (l. 633/1941, l.aut.). The decision concerns an advertising campaign of a mineral water company. The commercial video promoting the mineral water features a…

1. Introduction Last week, a preliminary hearing took place before the European Court of Justice (CJEU), in a case dealing with the implementation of the Collective Rights Management (CRM) Directive (2014/26/EU) in Italy. The AG Opinion is expected on 11th May. The Civil Court of Rome submitted a preliminary ruling request (No. 10/2022), in the…

This contribution is based on a paper published in 44 European Intellectual Property Law Review 595 (2022)   Photographs are included in Article 2(1) of the Berne Convention as copyrightable artistic works. All Berne Union Member States must thus provide copyright protection to photographic works. As is known, originality has always been the essential requirement…

When Sandro Botticelli depicted his beloved Simonetta Cattaneo de Vespucci as main character of “the Birth of Venus” back in the fifteenth century, he possibly thought she would eventually fall in love with him. She was the painter’s very first love and was perhaps the most beautiful Italian lady of those times. Yet, she kept…

Nelson Mandela said that “Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world”, but is it powerful enough to change copyright? A long-standing debate has been going on regarding the supporting, or rather, hindering role of copyright rules in educational settings. Recent developments shed new hope. With Article 5 of the CDSM Directive, the…