Intellectual Property, Copyright Law, SIAE Bulletin, Musical Works, Negotiation Agreement and Synchronization Rights, Court of Milan, XIV section. civ., Court of Companies, Specialized Company A, judgment no. 490 of January 14, 2021
Copyright law of 04/22/1941 n ° 633.
The rights administered by SIAE pursuant to art. 180 paragraphs 1 and 2 L.A.
The discipline of art. 180 L.A. which identifies the rights administered exclusively by SIAE, does not include synchronization rights. The literal data of the law undoubtedly highlights that the brokerage of rights, exercised for the purposes referred to in paragraph 2 (granting on behalf and in the interest of those entitled to licenses and authorizations for the economic use of protected works, collection of the proceeds deriving from such licenses and authorizations, distribution of such proceeds among the entitled persons) is to be referred, as regards musical works, to the rights of public performance of the works and to the rights of phonomechanical reproduction, according to what is established in paragraph 1.
The exclusivity that the law reserves for SIAE is limited to this strictly defined area, which cannot be extended by way of analogical interpretation.
It follows that the negotiating title on which the right alleged by the plaintiffs is based cannot be the SIAE bulletin; it is comparable to a private agreement by which the parties who sign it regulate their respective rights of economic exploitation as regards the rights administered exclusively by SIAE, but its object does not extend beyond these limits.
The constitutive fact of the claim must be found elsewhere: however, there is no deduction of any other title in question, nor can it in any way be presumed that non-exclusive rights have necessarily been attributed to the sub-editor and quantitatively regulated as in the bulletin, if there is a need for positive proof of a negotiation agreement concerning synchronization rights.
