Italian Supreme Court clarifies limits of quotation for art reproductions

The Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) issued a landmark ruling on February 8, 2022 (n. 4038) that clarifies the boundaries of the quotation exception under Italian copyright law. The case involved the reproduction of 24,000 artworks by Mario Schifano in a six-volume catalog published by Fondazione M.S. Multistudio. The Court established that full-scale photographic reproduction of an entire artwork does not qualify as a quotation under Article 70 of the Italian Copyright Law. For a reproduction to be considered a lawful quotation, it must be partial, instrumental to purposes of criticism, discussion, teaching or scientific research, and must not compete with the economic exploitation of the work. The ruling reinforces that unauthorized reproduction of artworks, even in catalogs, requires prior consent from the copyright holder. The article by lawyer Raffaella Pellegrino, published on Artribune Magazine #65, explains that the quotation exception is often misinterpreted to justify unauthorized uses, such as publishing exhibition catalogs without the artist's permission. The decision provides a clear criterion for future users: any integral reproduction falls under the exclusive right of the author and cannot be justified as a quotation.