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On February 23, 2026, Italy’s Minister of Culture signed a groundbreaking ministerial decree that redefines the tariffs for private copying compensation.
For the first time, the new Italian cloud storage copyright levy extends the obligation to pay compensation for reproduced copyrighted works to cloud storage services—a move that will reshape how digital storage providers operate in the country.
The decree addresses an area long marked by tension between the technology industry and rights holders. However, it introduces a structural change to the entire digital ecosystem: the extension of the private copy levy to cloud storage. For the first time in Italian legislative history, remote storage space is now treated, from a functional standpoint, as equivalent to a physical medium and subject to private copying compensation.
What Is “Private Copying”?
The concept of private copying emerged in the 1980s, in a technological context radically different from today’s. Back then, individuals would listen to the radio and record songs onto blank cassette tapes, or later duplicate CDs for personal use. These were reproductions made by individual users for exclusively private purposes, without any commercial intent.
Both Italian and European law allow private individuals to make copies of copyrighted works for personal use. However, as a compensating mechanism, manufacturers or importers of recording media must pay a fee to collecting societies (formerly SIAE, now the Fondazione Copia Privata Italia), which then redistribute it to authors.
Originally, relatively few parties were obligated to pay: manufacturers of blank cassettes and VHS tapes, then blank CDs and DVDs, as well as recorder manufacturers. This was a limited scope, consistent with a market still heavily tied to physical media. With technological evolution, however, the pool of payers has progressively expanded. The introduction of digital devices with internal or external memory led to the inclusion of new categories: manufacturers of computers, smartphones, USB drives, external hard drives, and generally any device capable of storing protected content.
What the New Italian Decree Covers
The new decree updates the private copying tariffs (last revised in 2020), adjusting them based on the ISTAT index. The detailed technical annex specifies the compensation due for each device category based on storage capacity.
For example, for USB drives:
- Up to 1 GB: no compensation due
- 1 to 8 GB: compensation of € 0.12
- 8 to 32 GB: compensation of € 0.11
According to data compiled by IsICult (Italian Institute for Cultural Industry) and reported by DDay.it, the increases compared to the 2020 decree range from 15% to 40%, depending on the device and memory tier.
Notably, compensation will now apply for the first time to refurbished devices. This means that for such devices, the levy may be paid multiple times: at the initial purchase and at each subsequent resale of the same refurbished device.
Cloud Storage: The Most Significant Change
The most significant innovation concerns cloud storage. The decree explicitly provides, under letter q) of Article 2 of the technical annex, compensation for “cloud memory or cloud storage space.” Unlike physical devices, where the fee is a one-time payment, cloud storage compensation must be paid monthly.
The tariffs are set at € 0.0003 per gigabyte between 1 and 500 GB, dropping to € 0.0002 for gigabytes beyond that threshold. Storage up to 1 GB is exempt, though this affects a minimal percentage of users, given that free plans typically start at 5 or 15 GB. The maximum cap is € 2.40 per month per user, amounting to nearly €30 annually—on top of subscription costs.
While the decree does not clarify the operational procedures for collecting the compensation, it does specify that the quarterly declaration required under Article 71-septies, paragraph 3, of Law No. 633/1941 must indicate, for each month of the quarter: (i) the number of active users, recorded on the last day of the month, and (ii) the cloud memory capacity or storage space available to them. Clearly, cloud providers will need to submit this declaration.
Compatibility With European Law
The Court of Justice of the European Union addressed the extension of private copying rules to cloud storage in Case C-433/20 (Austro-Mechana). According to the Court, the private copying exception under the InfoSoc Directive must be interpreted to mean that “reproductions on any medium” includes making backup copies of copyrighted works for private purposes on a server where a cloud service provider has made storage space available to a user.
A copy in the cloud therefore constitutes a reproduction of a protected work, since uploading to the cloud results in storing a copy. The Court also clarified that identifying who must pay fair compensation falls within the discretion of Member States implementing the private copying exception. Each national legal system may therefore decide whether to provide compensation for private cloud copying, as well as determine the elements of the compensation system, including obligated parties, the form, method, and level of compensation owed to copyright holders.
Many jurisdictions have chosen not to introduce compensation systems for private cloud copying. In the era of streaming and platforms, consumption of creative works occurs differently than in the past, and it is now rare for users to upload copyrighted materials to the cloud.
Tech Industry Reactions to the Cloud Storage Levy
Unsurprisingly, the introduction of a fair compensation system for cloud copies has sparked strong reactions from the technology industry. Both Big Tech companies and various trade associations—including AIIP, Assintel, and Anitec-Assinform—have challenged the decree.
In a joint statement, the associations noted that the final text of the decree did not incorporate the corrections proposed to the Ministry during the public consultation, particularly regarding the scope of application, exemptions for the B2B market, and risks of levy duplication.
AIIP and Assintel—while announcing their intention to file an appeal—have reiterated several substantive and procedural concerns, including:
- Risk of double taxation along the supply chain: Those who have already paid compensation on storage devices and media risk facing an additional monthly, cumulative levy simply for having cloud storage available.
- Indiscriminate application to B2B cloud services: Storage used by businesses and public administrations for backup, operational continuity, compliance, data processing, and security does not relate to private copying of protected works.
- Disproportionate compliance and reporting burdens: These impose a particularly heavy impact on SMEs and national operators.
- Competitive distortions: There is a risk of penalizing operators based in Italy, while favoring large international platforms that may be harder to reach through control and collection mechanisms.
Other operators have criticized the anachronistic nature of the regulation, observing that “private copying”—understood as the physical duplication of a protected work onto a personal medium—is now a residual practice. Music and audiovisual content are predominantly consumed via streaming. Additionally, the reimbursement mechanism designed to exclude cloud services not used for reproducing protected content has been described as excessively cumbersome, potentially discouraging its actual use.
Previous Legal Challenges Set a Precedent
The private copying framework is no stranger to administrative litigation. In 2023, the Italian Administrative Supreme Court, the Council of State, in ruling No. 1183/2023, annulled the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities’ decree of June 18, 2019, regarding “Exemptions from payment of compensation for private reproduction of phonograms and videograms.” The court found that the decree failed to provide predefined, objective, and transparent criteria for identifying exemption cases and regulating reimbursements. It also granted SIAE discretionary power to determine when to grant exemptions—deemed unlawful due to the entity’s conflict of interest.
Although exemption rules are now governed by a new decree adopted in September 2024, it remains to be seen whether new appeals will emerge and whether additional grounds for illegality will be identified, both in the exemptions decree and in the new ministerial decree determining compensation—particularly concerning the inclusion of cloud services within the scope of private copying compensation.
On a similar topic, you can read the article “The Digital Services Act introduces relevant changes on the liability regime of ISPs“.