THE PROTECTION OF BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS

Is it permissible to freely write about, publish, or recount the lives of famous people?

The Court of Milan (Specialized Commercial Division) recently ruled on this matter to settle a dispute between two authors (Antonio Prestigiacomo and Marcello Sorgi) regarding the life of the Sicilian prince Raimondo Lanza di Trabia, the man who invented the soccer transfer market, who was Rita Hayworth’s lover and a friend of Onassis.

In one of the most interesting passages, the Court ruled that, in the case of biographical works about well-known figures, the facts and events concerning them belong to the public domain and cannot, in and of themselves, be monopolized. Copyright protection, on the other hand, applies to the formal choices and the stylistic and editorial techniques through which the author conveys them.

In the case at hand, the Court ruled that the text by the plaintiff, Antonio Prestigiacomo, *Il Principe irrequieto. La vita di Raimondo Lanza di Trabia* (The Restless Prince: The Life of Raimondo Lanza di Trabia), is undoubtedly protected by copyright. This is true both in terms of originality and in terms of novelty. As for originality, the work is in fact the personal result of the harmonization of true facts—including historical ones—and plausible facts, organized and stylistically reworked using a particular technique. The text is, in fact, the result of the alternation, within the narrative fabric, of interviews structured as questions and answers—clearly identifiable by the use of quotation marks—conducted by the author with various individuals who had direct knowledge of the Prince.

However, the Court ruled that, while the protagonist and many of the events described are the same, there is a sufficient degree of difference between the two works to conclude that they are independent creative works belonging to different genres, each of which is eligible for individual protection.

In conclusion, Prestigiacomo’s work cannot be considered plagiarized from that of Marcello Sorgi; however, biographical works about well-known figures—as long as they do not refer to the specific facts and events that pertained to those individuals—cannot, in and of themselves, be monopolized.