Law No. 132/2025 on artificial intelligence introduced, in Article 171 (1) (a-ter) of the Italian Copyright Act, a new offense concerning the unauthorized reproduction of materials available online, including through the use of artificial intelligence systems.
The new offense
The new offense punishes anyone who, without authorization, for any purpose and in any form, reproduces or extracts text or data from works or other materials available online or in databases, in violation of the provisions on text and data mining (consent for use for scientific and non-commercial research, and authorization for other purposes only when the use of works and materials reproduced within text and data mining activities has not been expressly reserved by the rights holders), including through artificial intelligence systems.
This offense remains subject to the principle of subsidiarity and applies only when such activities do not fall within the more serious offenses provided for in Articles 171-bis and 171-ter of the Italian Copyright Act.
The object of the punishable conduct: the data scraping
Data scraping is the automated collection of data and content from websites accessible online, and in this context, it concerns the automated extraction of online data for the training of artificial intelligence systems. A.I. makes it possible to generate images, texts, music, or their combinations based on the processing of data mined through scraping.
The violation of intellectual property rights
The data mining takes place without acknowledging the authorship of the creators, who thereby lose control over the use of their creations, their data, and consequently the exercise of their rights. The new provision therefore aims to protect copyright by ensuring criminal penalties in cases of unlawful exploitation of rights.
The impact of the new offense on Legislative Decree 231 compliance framework
Article 25-novies of Legislative Decree No. 231/2001 includes, among the predicate offenses, the violations set forth in Article 171 of the Italian Copyright Act; therefore, the new offense falls within the catalogue of predicate crimes for the purposes of the administrative liability of legal entities.
Consequently, the newly introduced offense may be attributed both to natural persons and to legal entities.
The A.I. act
Italian legislation, through this newly introduced criminal offense, represents the first form of penal protection against data scraping: indeed, the European Union’s A.I. Act — Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, published in the Official Journal on 12 July 2024 — contains no provisions to that effect.
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