With a one-year delay, the Italian government has implemented the EU Directive 2014/26/EU “on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market”, the so-called Barnier Directive.

On 11 April 2017, the Legislative Decree no. 35/2017, which implemented the Directive, entered into force.

This way, the ‘freedom of right holders to choose their collective management organizations’, as well as the principle of ‘equal treatment of categories of right holders and equitable distribution of royalties’ has finally been recognised in the Italian legal framework.

However, this new Italian provisions have probably not gone as far as many had hoped.