Ley N° 633 de 22 de abril de 1941 sobre la Protección del Derecho de Autor y los Derechos Conexos (modificada por última vez por el Decreto Legislativo N° 154 de 26 de mayo de 1997), Italia

Chapter I Works Protected

Art. 1. Works of the mind having a creative character and belonging to literature, music, figurative arts, architecture, theater or cinematography, whatever their mode or form of expression, shall be protected in accordance with this Law.

Computer programs shall also be protected as literary works within the meaning of Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, ratified and enforceable pursuant to Law No. 399 of June 20, 1978.

Art. 2. In particular, protection shall extend to:

(1)

literary, dramatic, scientific, didactic and religious works, whether in written or oral form;

(2)

musical works and compositions, with or without words, dramaticomusical works, and musical variations that themselves constitute original works;

(3)

choreographic works and works of dumb show, the form of which is fixed in writing or otherwise;

(4)

works of sculpture, painting, drawing, engraving and similar figurative arts, including scenic art, even where such works are applied to industrial

products, if their artistic value is distinct from the industrial character of the product with which they are associated;

(5)

architectural plans and works;

(6)

works of cinematographic art, whether silent or with sound, provided they are not mere documentaries protected in accordance with the provisions of Chapter V of Part II;

(7)

works of photographic art and works expressed with processes analogous to photograph provided they are not simple photographs protected in accordance with the provisions of Chapter V of Part II;

(8)

computer programs, in whatever form they are expressed, provided that they are original and result from the author’s own intellectual creation. Ideas and principles which underly any element of a computer program, including those which underly its interfaces, shall be excluded from the protection afforded by this Law. The term “computer program” shall include their preparatory design materials.

Art. 3. Collective works formed by the assembling of works, or part of works, and possessing the character of a selfcontained creation resulting from selection and coordination with a specific literary, scientific, didactic, religious, political or artistic aim, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, anthologies, magazines and newspapers, shall be protected as original works, independently of and without prejudice to any copyright subsisting in the constituent works or parts thereof.

Art. 4. Without prejudice to the rights subsisting in the original work, works of a creative character derived from any such work, such as translations into another language, transformations into any other literary or artistic form, modifications and additions constituting a substantial remodeling of the original work, adaptations, arrangements, abridgments and variations which do not constitute an original work, shall also be protected.

Art. 5. The provisions of this Law shall not apply to the texts of official acts of the State or of public administrations, whether Italian or foreign.

Chapter II Holders of the Right

Art. 6. Copyright shall be acquired on the creation of a work that constitutes the particular expression of an intellectual effort.

Art. 7. In the case of a collective work, the person who organizes and directs its creation shall be deemed the author.

A person who has created a derivative work shall be deemed the author of that work within the limits of his own effort.

Art. 8. A person who is shown, in the customary manner, as the author or is announced as such in the course of the recitation, performance or broadcasting of a work shall, in the absence of proof to the contrary, be deemed the author of the work.

Any pseudonym, professional name, initials or customary sign, wellknown as being equivalent to a true name, shall be deemed to have the same value as such true name.

Art. 9. Any person who has performed or published in any manner an anonymous or pseudonymous work shall be entitled to assert the rights of the author until such time as the author reveals his identity.

This provision shall not apply in the case of pseudonymous as referred to in the second paragraph of the preceding Article.

Art. 10. If the work has been created by the indistinguishable and inseparable contributions of two or more persons, the copyright shall belong to all the joint authors in common.

In the absence of proof of written agreement to the contrary, the indivisible shares shall be presumed to be of equal value.

The provisions that regulate property owned in common shall be applicable. Furthermore, moral rights may be asserted at any time by any one joint author; and the work, if unpublished, may not be published nor be modified or utilized in a form differing from that of first publication, without the consent of all the joint authors. However, in the event of unjustified refusal by one or more joint authors, publication, modification or new utilization of the work may be authorized by the judicial authority upon such conditions and terms as that authority may order.

Art. 11. Copyright in works created and published under the name and at the expense of the State, the provinces or the communes shall belong to them.

In the absence of agreement to the contrary with the authors of the works published, the same right shall also belong to private legal entities of a nonprofitmaking character, as well as to academies and other public cultural organizations, in respect of records of their proceedings and their publications.

Chapter III Content and Duration of Copyright

Section I Economic Exploitation of Works

Art. 12. An author shall have the exclusive right to publish his work.

He shall also have the exclusive right to the exploit his work in any form or manner, whether original or derivative, within the limits laid down by this Law, particularly the exercise of the exclusive rights set out in the following Articles.

The first form of exercise of the right of exploitation shall be deemed to constitute first publication.

Art. 12bis. In the absence of any stipulation to the contrary, if a computer program has been created by an employee in the performance of his tasks or following instructions given by his employer, the latter shall have the exclusive right to exploit the program thus created.

Art. 13. The exclusive right of reproduction concerns the multiplication of copies of a work by any means, such as copying by hand, printing, lithography, engraving, photography, phonography, cinematography, and any other process of reproduction.

Art. 14. The exclusive right of transcription concerns the use of means suitable for transforming an oral work into a written work or into a work reproduced by one of the methods referred in the preceding Article.

Art. 15. The exclusive right of public performance or recitation concerns the performance or recitation, however carried out, for payment or not, of a musical, dramatic or cinematographic work or of any other work suitable for public showing and of oral works.

The performance or recitation of a work within the normal circle of the family, of a community, a school or a retirement home, shall not be deemed a public performance provided that it has not been carried out with gainful intent.

Art. 15bis.—(1) Authors shall receive reduced remuneration if the performance or recitation of their works takes place on the premises of officially constituted assistance centers or institutions, or benevolent associations, on condition that they are intended solely for members and guests and that they are not carried out with gainful intent. Failing agreement between the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (Società italiana degli autori ed editori, SIAE) and the concerned associations, the amount of the remuneration shall be laid down by decree of the President of the Council of Ministers (Presidente del Consiglio dei ministri) issued after consultation with the Minister for Home Affairs.

(2) The criteria and conditions for ascertaining the subjective and objective circumstances justifying application of the provision in the first sentence of paragraph (1), shall be established by decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, issued in accordance with Article 17(3) of Law No. 400 of August 23, 1988, after consultation with the responsible parliamentary committees. The following in particular shall be prescribed:

(a)

verification of the fact that the above mentioned legal persons have been entered for at least two years in the registers set up by Article 6 of Law No. 266 of August 11, 1991;

(b)

the conditions for identifying the premises of such legal persons and for verifying the number of members and guests, which should be limited and determined in advance;

(c)

membership must have been obtained in a form that can be attested to and a long time before the date of the performance;

(d)

verification of the fact that the performers are giving an exclusively free performance in a spirit of solidarity based on benevolent action.

Art. 16. The exclusive right of diffusion concerns the use of any means of diffusion at a distance, such as telegraphy, telephony, radio or television broadcasting, or other like means, including communication to the public by satellite and cable retransmission.

Art. 16bis.—(1) For the purposes of this Law:

(a)

“satellite” means any satellite operating within frequency bands which, pursuant to the Law on telecommunications, are reserved for the transmission of signals intended for direct public reception or for private individual communication, provided such private reception takes place under circumstances comparable with those applying to public reception;

(b)

“communication to the public by satellite” means the distribution, under the supervision and responsibility of the broadcasting organization operating on the national territory; programcarrying signals intended for public reception as an uninterrupted direct communication sequence towards the satellite and then towards earth. If the programcarrying signals are broadcast in a coded form, communication to the public by satellite shall be deemed to exist if the means of decoding the broadcast are made available to the public either by the broadcasting organization itself or by third parties with its consent. If communication to the public by satellite takes place on the territory of a State not a member of the European Union which does not afford the level of protection laid down by this Law in respect of such system of communication to the public:

1. communication to the public by satellite shall be deemed to take place in Italy if the upwards programcarrying signals are transmitted to the satellite by a station located on the national territory. The rights afforded by this Law as regards satellite broadcasting shall be exercised in respect of the person responsible for such station;
2. communication to the public shall be deemed to take place on the national territory if the upwards signals are transmitted by a station which is not located on the territory of a Member State of the European Union but the communication to the public by satellite is performed on behalf of a broadcasting organization located in Italy, provided such organization has its main establishment on the national territory. The rights afforded by this Law as regards satellite broadcasting shall be exercised in respect of the person responsible for such broadcasting organization;

(c)

“cable retransmission” means the simultaneous retransmission in an unmodified and integral form, intended for the public, by means of a cable or very high frequency redistribution system, of primary radio or television broadcasts, whatever their broadcasting mode, originating from another Member State of the European Union and intended for public reception.

Art. 17.—(1) The exclusive right of distribution concerns the right to market, place in circulation or make available to the public, by whatever means and for whatever purpose, a work or copies thereof, and includes, in addition, the exclusive right to introduce into the territory of the European Union, for distribution, copies of a work made in countries not members of the European Union.

(2) The free delivery of copies of a work for promotional purposes or for teaching or scientific research, when carried out and authorized by the right holder, shall not be deemed to be exercise of the exclusive right of distribution.

Art. 18. The exclusive right of translation concerns all forms of modification, adaptation and transformation of a work as referred to in Article 4.

An author shall also have the exclusive right to publish his works in a collection.

Finally, he shall have the exclusive right to make any modifications to his work.

Art. 18bis.—(1) The exclusive right of rental concerns the making available for use of originals, of copies or of carriers of copyright works for a limited period of time and for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage.

(2)

The exclusive right of lending concerns the making available for use of originals, of copies or of carriers of copyright works, for a limited period of time and for purposes other than those referred to in paragraph (1) when made through establish marks which are accessible to the public.

(3)

The author shall have the exclusive right to authorize rental or lending by third parties.

(4)

The above mentioned rights shall not be exhausted by any sale or other act of distribution of originals, copies or carriers of works.

(5)

Even where the right of rental is assigned to a producer of phonograms or cinematographic or audiovisual works or of sequences of moving images, the author shall retain his right to fair remuneration for a rental contract concluded by such producer with third parties. Any agreement to the contrary shall be null and void. In the absence of agreement between the categories concerned as defined in the first paragraph of Rule 16 of the Regulations, the said remuneration shall be set according to the procedure provided for in Article 4 of Decree Law No. 440 of July 20, 1945.

(6)

Paragraphs (1) to (4) shall not apply to plans or designs of buildings or to works of applied art.

Art. 19. The exclusive rights referred to in the preceding Articles shall be independent of each other. The exercise of any one right shall not exclude the exercise of the other rights.

They shall extend to the work in its entirety and to each of its parts.

Section II Protection of Rights in the Work in Defense of the Person of the Author (Moral Rights)

Art. 20. Independently of the exclusive rights of exploitation of the work referred to in the provisions of the preceding Section, and even after the transfer of such rights, the author shall retain the right to claim authorship of his work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or any other modification of, and other derogatory action in relation to, the work, which would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.

However, in the case of works of architecture, the author may not oppose modifications deemed necessary in the course of construction. Further, he may not oppose other modifications which may be necessary in any such completed work. However, if the work is recognized by the competent State authority as having an important artistic character, the author shall be entrusted with the study and execution of such modifications.

Art. 21. The author of an anonymous or pseudonymous work shall at all times have the right to reveal his identity and to have his position as author recognized by judicial procedure.

Notwithstanding any prior agreement to the contrary, the successors in title of an author who has revealed his identity shall be required to indicate the name of the author in publications, reproductions, transcriptions, performances, recitations and broadcasts, or in any other form of manifestation or announcement to the public.

Art. 22. The rights referred to in the preceding Articles shall be inalienable.

However, if the author was aware of and has accepted modifications to his work, he shall not be entitled to intervene to prevent the performance thereof or to demand its suppression.

Art. 23. After the death of the author, the right referred to in Article 20 may be asserted, without limitation of time, by his spouse and children and, in the absence thereof, by his parents and other direct ascendants and descendants, and in the absence of such ascendants and descendants, by his brothers and sisters and their descendants.

If the public interest should so require, such action may also be taken by the President of the Council of Ministers after hearing the competent professional association.

Art. 24. The right to publish unpublished works shall belong to the heirs of the author or to the legatees of such works, unless the author has expressly forbidden publication or has entrusted it to other persons.

If the author has fixed a period of time to precede publication, unpublished works shall not be published before the expiration of such period.

If more than one person is concerned by the first paragraph and there is disagreement between them, the matter shall be decided by judicial authority after hearing the public prosecutor. The wishes of the deceased person, when expressed in writing, shall in all cases be respected.

The provisions of Part III, Chapter II, Section II, shall apply to such works.

Section III Duration of Exploitation Rights

Art. 25. The exploitation rights in a work shall subsist for the life time of the author and until the end of the fiftieth calendar year after his death.

Art. 26. In the case of works referred to in Article 10 and of dramaticomusical and choreographic works and works of dumb show, the duration of the exploitation rights of each joint author and contributor shall be determined by the life time of the last surviving joint author.

In the case of collective works, the duration of the exploitation rights of each contributor shall be determined by the respective lifetimes of each contributor. The duration of the exploitation rights in the work as a whole shall be 50 years from the date of first publication, whatever the form in which publication was effected, except in the case of magazines, newspapers and other periodical works to which the provisions of Article 30 shall apply.

Art. 27. In the case of anonymous or pseudonymous works other than those referred to in the second paragraph of Article 8, the duration of the exploitation rights shall be 50 years from the date of first publication, whatever the form in which publication was effected.

If, before expiry of such term, the author has revealed his identity or his identity has been revealed by the persons referred to in Article 23 or by persons authorized by the author, and in the manner established by the following Article, Article 25 shall apply.

Art. 27bis. [Repealed]

Art. 28. In order to enjoy the normal duration of the exploitation rights, the person concerned must reveal his identity by means of a declaration made to the Office of Literary, Scientific and Artistic Property (Ufficio della proprietà letteraria, scientifica ed artistica) of the Office of the President of the Council of Ministers in accordance with the applicable regulations.

The declaration shall be published in the form required by the regulations and shall have effect, as regards third parties who have acquired rights in the anonymous or pseudonymous work, as from the date of filing.

Art. 29. The duration of the exploitation rights belonging, under Article 11, to the State, the provinces, the communes, the academies or public cultural organizations, or to private legal entities of a nonprofit making character, shall be twenty years as from first publication, whatever the form in which publication was effected. In the case of communications and memoranda published by academies and other public cultural organizations, the term shall be reduced to two years, after which the author shall wholly recover his right to the unrestricted disposal of his writings.