Articles by Simone Aliprandi

In most cases, cultural heritage refers to creative works whose copyright has expired a long time ago or even never existed. This situation can give the impression that those cultural assets are undoubtedly in the public domain and there are no restrictions for their reproduction. This paper, based solely on Italian law, tries to show, on the one hand, that their public domain status is still partial due to a distorted and manipulative use of so-called intellectual property; on the other hand, it demonstrates that there are far more incisive constraints arising from administrative law and an entrenched bureaucratic and contractual practice which is contrary to a free and unconditional reproducibility of the cultural heritage. The paper explores the most common tricks used to ward off the danger of the public domain and presents the legal instruments required to make these cultural assets and resources really open. Furthermore, this paper offers a comment, based on a critical approach, about the most relevant rules provided by the Italian legal system for this legal and cultural subject.