The Italian “Corte di Cassazione” (Section III, judgment of 9 May 2017, n.22267) states that, as far as copyright protection is concerned, proof of use of the abusive duplication or reproduction of audiovisual media can be achieved on the basis of a series of indications such as the use of counterfeit covers, the absence of logos or trademarks of the manufacturer, the way of offering the goods to the public, without the need of an expertise or of a technical assessment.
The “Corte di Cassazione” confirms what said by the Court of Appeal, namely that
“In this matter the Court of Appeal highlighted that the ways of possession of CDs and DVDs by the defendant, which offered them for sale on a stall in a public street, all of them with covers that were reproductions of the originals, with the absence of any documentary evidence of the lawful origin of the goods, uniquely and logically led to the conclusion that CDs and DVDs were abusively duplicated and also lacked of the SIAE sign”.
The “Cassazione”, besides, states that proof of sale or placing on sale is achieved not only in case of fragrance of the offense, namely
“it does not necessarily presuppose that the defendant was caught when he was selling the abu-sively duplicated products. In fact, this evidence can also be reached considering the ways of dis-covery of the goods and the place in which the goods were found. The applicant was surprised in the public road, where he had set up a stall displaying the goods to the public and on this basis it was correctly considered that the goods were placed on the market, and that this one a behavior falling in the typical fact referred to in the second paragraph of article 171-ter letter a), law n.633 of 1941”.
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