1. Facts
In 1991, photographer Gianni Minischetti produced 54 photographs of Oriana Fallaci in New York, which she subsequently used in a Corriere della Sera article and in one of her books. The photographs were later published on one of Meta’s social media platforms without authorisation. In 2022, Minischetti commenced proceedings seeking a declaration of infringement, an injunction, and damages.
2. Classification of the Photographs
The Court held that the photographs constituted opere fotografiche (photographic works) attracting full copyright protection under Law 633/1941, rather than mere fotografie semplici (simple photographs) under the limited protection regime of Article 87. Applying the Italian Supreme Court standard, the court confirmed that the threshold of creativity required for a work to be classified as an artistic work is low: it suffices that the work reflects an original reworking of the real world as photographed, however minimal. The photographs were found to construct a visual narrative linking Oriana Fallaci to New York, going beyond mechanical reproduction of her.
Note: Law 182/2025, Article 47, has since extended the protection period for simple photographs from 20 to 70 years, amending Article 92.
3. Hosting Provider Liability
3.1 The Qualified Knowledge Requirement
The Court classified Meta as a passive hosting provider, exercising no prior editorial control over user content. Applying Cass. 7708/2019, liability arises only upon the provider acquiring qualified knowledge of the infringement (i.e. knowledge of the “specific” content and its “unlawfulness”). Generic awareness does not suffice.
The prior notices sent between 2013 and 2021 were held insufficient on two grounds: they were directed to Facebook Italy rather than to Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (the correct addressee, identified by Meta as early as 2013) and they failed to identify the specific URLs at issue. The notice of May 2022 was held valid, however qualified knowledge was deemed established upon service of the writ of summons in December 2022, which combined the correct addressee, and a complete list of over 1,000 URLs.
3.2 The 37-Day Removal Delay
Following service of the summons, Meta removed the content but took 37 days to do so. The Court accepted that immediate removal cannot be demanded, but held 37 days unjustified given that Meta had been on qualified notice of a potential infringement since the last plaintiff’s notice in May 2022 and could have removed the illegal content as soon as the service of the writ of summons in December 2022. The period was included in the duration of infringement attributable to the platform.
4. Damages
Rather than applying the prezzo del consenso criterion (the amount of the royalty that would hypothetically have been due had the infringer sought authorisation from the copyright holder to use the copyright-protected work) under Article 158 of the Copyright Act, the Court ordered a technical accounting assessment by a court-appointed expert. Pecuniary damages were calculated using the SIAE tariff for “websites free of charge to the end user”, increased by 50% for the scale of infringement, plus a monthly lost earnings component, yielding approximately EUR 72,000. Non-pecuniary damages, covering infringement of the author’s moral rights, in particular the right of attribution, were awarded on an equitable basis at 75% of the pecuniary figure. The total award exceeded EUR 126,000.
5. Injunction
An injunction was granted requiring Meta to prevent future publications of the identified photographs. Consistent with CJEU case law (Case C-18/18, Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek v Facebook Ireland), the Court held that once a platform has received detailed notice of specific unlawful content, it is under a targeted obligation to prevent recurrence in respect of that content. This does not amount to a general monitoring duty.
6. Concurrent Italian Supreme Court Ruling
In a ruling issued within the same timeframe in an online defamation case, the Italian Supreme Court held that qualified knowledge of unlawful content may arise from sources other than a formal notice, including sufficiently detailed statements by the injured party. This potentially brings forward the point at which platform liability attaches and sits in some tension with the strict approach taken by the Court of Turin to the adequacy of the pre-2022 notices in this case. The interaction between the two decisions will require further developments by the courts.
7. EU Comparative Context
The approach taken by the Court of Turin sits within a broader EU framework.
7.1 CJEU: Peterson v Google/YouTube and Elsevier v Cyando (Cases C-682/18 and C-683/18, 22 June 2021)
This Grand Chamber ruling is the leading CJEU authority on the liability of hosting platforms for user-uploaded infringing content. The Court held that a platform operator does not itself make a “communication to the public” within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC unless it contributes to giving access to protected content to the public in breach of copyright with full knowledge of the consequences of its conduct. Where the operator plays a merely technical, automatic, and passive role, thus having no knowledge of or control over the content it stores, it benefits from the exemption in Article 14(1) of the E-Commerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC). That exemption is lost only upon acquiring specific knowledge of or awareness of specific illegal acts committed by its users relating to protected content uploaded on its platform. Automated indexing, search functionality, and revenue generation from advertising were held insufficient to establish such specific knowledge. The Court further confirmed, as a condition for obtaining an injunction, that the rights holder must first notify the intermediary of the infringement and the intermediary must fail to intervene expeditiously before court proceedings are commenced.
7.2 The Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, in force from 17 February 2024)
The DSA supersedes the E-Commerce Directive notice-and-action framework for proceedings commenced after 17 February 2024. Under Article 6 DSA, a provider retains its liability exemption provided it acts expeditiously to remove or disable access to illegal content upon obtaining actual knowledge of it, and does not play an active role giving it knowledge of or control over the content. The DSA introduces formal notice-and-action obligations and requires very large online platforms, such as Meta, to implement additional systemic risk-mitigation measures. Although the DSA did not apply to the present proceedings, it represents the operative framework for future cases and provides a more structured basis for assessing both the adequacy of notices and the reasonableness of removal timelines than is currently available under Italian domestic law alone.
