Browsing the web, it’s possible to access content that is not subject to any exclusive right, but it is equally likely to access material protected by intellectual property rights.
For example, publishing aphorisms found online on your social media page may constitute a copyright infringement if these compositions meet the requirement of creativity.
This was established by the Court of Milan in a ruling dated July 2, 2025, concerning two aphorisms first published by the author on a web portal and on a Facebook page, subsequently reproduced by an influencer on their Instagram profile without any authorization and without mentioning the author's name.
The writer had taken legal action complaining of the violation of his economic and moral rights as an author, also in consideration of the fact that, when typing the first words of the compositions into search engines, the results immediately referred to the influencer, effectively attributing authorship to her.
The author also complained that a publisher had withdrawn a previously made publishing proposal precisely because of doubts that had arisen about the authorship of those compositions following the publication of the posts by the influencer.
The judges recognized that the aphorisms were protected by copyright and that the author had suffered a loss of opportunity as a result of the unauthorized use of his works.
