The reproduction of the simple idea behind a work of authorship isn't a violation of copyright, which protects only the expressive form of the creation.
This principle, which is undisputed in case law, was reaffirmed by the Court of Cassation in its ruling no. 21851 of July 29, 2025, at the conclusion of a dispute brought by a science fiction comic book author who complained about the reproduction, in a publication of the same genre, of narrative and figurative elements characterizing some of his unpublished works.
In particular, the illustrator (who was also the author of the script) believed that the publisher to whom he had delivered the illustrations for the purpose of adding text (known as “lettering”) had disclosed the unpublished content to third parties without his consent.
However, in accordance with the findings of the lower courts, the Court ruled that there had been no copyright infringement, considering that the plots of the two publications were different and that the disputed similarities concerned only simple ideas, understood as narrative devices commonly used in comics and science fiction literature (e.g., the presence of aliens and technological devices or the theme of dreamlike journeys).
