Through copyright, intellectual works of a creative nature are protected. The type of works that can be protected is particularly wide and disparate. These include works of the figurative arts such as sculpture, painting, drawing, musical works, literary works, photographic works, computer programs, databases, works of industrial design, and WEB pages.

Legal protection arises at the very moment of artistic creation and with its extrusion, however, in today’s particularly diverse and rich landscape of works, registration with the designated bodies often allows for effective protectability as it provides the necessary proof of creation and possibly infringement by third parties.

The duration of copyright is up to 70 years after the death of the author (or the last of the co-authors) and is expressed in moral rights (thus inalienable, imprescriptible and unwaivable) and patrimonial rights (limited in time, renounceable and transmissible).

Patrimonial rights, consisting in practice of the exclusive right to economically exploit the work, include:

• right of reproduction
• right to perform, represent, act, project the work
• right to disseminate, that is, to communicate the work by any means to a distant audience
• right of distribution
• right to rent
• right of lending
• right to process, transform, modify the work in any way.