Italy: Riccardo Pagani v. Leo Burnett Company S.r.l., Ordinary Court of Turin, 32855/2014, 31 March 2015

The Court of Turin held that the main idea for a finished work (a TV commercial for the FIAT 500) had been developed in an initial project carried out by the claimant and that this project was the basis for the subsequent authors’ work.  Consequently, the commercial was evidentially a development of his original idea.  His work was therefore entitled to copyright protection in line with Article 1 of the Italian Copyright Law which protects works ‘whatever their mode or form of expression’ and he was entitled to be named as a co-author of the advertisement.

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law