Gianpaolo Todisco - Partner
For a long time, under Italian copyright law, the so-called simple photograph occupied an uncomfortable middle ground. It was not creative enough to qualify as a work of authorship, yet not entirely unprotected either. It was everywhere in practice—within archives, newspapers, catalogues, and the visual documentation of everyday life—while remaining legally marginal, especially when compared to artistic or creative photography.
That framework reflected an outdated idea of what an image was supposed to be: a technical product, quickly consumed, with a short economic and cultural lifespan. In that context, a limited term of protection—twenty years from creation—appeared coherent. Photographs served their purpose, circulated briefly, and then faded into the background.
That world no longer exists.
The recent extension of the term of protection for simple photographs from twenty to seventy years marks a profound shift. It is not merely a legislative adjustment, but a rethinking of the role photography plays in contemporary society and in the cultural economy. The law finally acknowledges something that anyone working with images has understood for years: even a photograph lacking creativity in the strict legal sense may retain economic, documentary, and cultural value over a very long period of time—sometimes longer than many works formally recognised as “artistic”.
Italian copyright law has always drawn a clear theoretical distinction between creative photography and simple photography, while struggling to maintain that clarity in practice. Creative photography presupposes a personal contribution, a recognisable expressive vision. Simple photography, by contrast, is traditionally defined as a neutral reproduction of reality. Yet this neutrality is often illusory. Even documentary, journalistic, or reproductive photographs involve choices, skills, and technical sensitivity that shape the final image.
For decades, however, the legal system maintained a reduced level of protection, almost as if to reaffirm that in the absence of creativity the law should step aside quickly. The digital environment, the global circulation of images, and the transformation of photographs into enduring informational assets have gradually made this approach untenable. A simple photograph today can be reused endlessly, detached from its original context, monetised, archived, indexed, and embedded in platforms and databases. Its value no longer expires after a few years.
The extension to seventy years is rooted in this awareness. It does not aim to “reward” non-creativity, but rather to recognise that the duration of legal protection can no longer be based on an obsolete understanding of the photographic lifecycle. In a world where images function as memory, documentation, cultural heritage, and even raw material for data-driven systems, legal time must expand to reflect real time.
The practical consequences of this reform are far from negligible. Many photographs that, under the previous regime, would already have entered the public domain remain protected today. This affects publishing activities, digitisation projects, cultural initiatives, institutional communication, and even everyday uses of historical imagery. The widespread assumption that an “old” photograph is automatically free to use becomes, at best, risky—and often plainly incorrect.
For photographers, heirs, professional archives, and those who manage photographic collections, the reform represents a clear statement of principle. Photographic work, even when it does not aspire to artistic authorship, is recognised as a form of production worthy of long-term legal protection. For users of images, however, this ushers in a phase of heightened responsibility: verifying rights, reconstructing ownership, and revisiting established practices becomes unavoidable.
Criticism, of course, has not been absent. Some argue that extending protection slows down access to visual culture, delays entry into the public domain, and creates additional burdens for cultural institutions already operating with limited resources. These concerns are legitimate and touch upon a core issue of modern copyright law: the balance between protection and access.
At the same time, photography has become one of the primary means through which collective memory is constructed and transmitted. Treating photographs as short-lived goods, destined to lose protection quickly, meant ignoring their real cultural and economic weight. In this sense, the reform does not invent a new right, but rather formalises a transformation that has already taken place.
Today, the simple photograph is no longer “simple” in the way it once was. It is a visual production that endures, circulates, and generates value over time. Extending its term of protection acknowledges this reality and forces all stakeholders—authors, users, and institutions alike—to engage with images in a more conscious and responsible way.
The debate is unlikely to end here. On the contrary, it is bound to continue. But one thing is now clear: after this reform, simple photography can no longer be treated as a secondary or lesser right. It has definitively entered the long era of copyright.
