Sports audiovisual rights and creative freedom in video games: the Court of Genoa rejects the motion by Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A
With its order of 27 June 2025, the Court of Genoa ruled on an unusual dispute concerning sports audiovisual rights and video game content, rejecting the motion for interim injunction filed by Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A against a gamer accused of violating its exclusive rights by illegally publishing online “highlights” created using the EA Sports FC25 video game to recreate the actions of football matches.
According to Lega, the “audiovisual rights” it holds over sporting events include the rights to reproduce images of the event, including highlights, i.e. still images, slow-motion images, instant replays and any other frames or processing of game actions in animated graphics. For this reason, the graphic processing shared by the gamer on his social media channels (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, Telegram and others) constituted unauthorised reproductions of protected images.
Furthermore, according to the applicant, the gamer offered a service that competed with its own, causing economic damage and devaluing the rights granted to the various licensees, considering that the publications took place immediately after the conclusion of the football matches or, in some cases, at the same time.
The defendant's defence claimed, on the other hand, that the creations were not reproductions of real images, but autonomous video game simulations, the result of creative and gaming skills, without any substitutive character with respect to the official content protected by article 78-quater of Law no. 633 of 22 April 1941 (Italian Copyright Law), and in any case falling within the scope of free use pursuant to articles 65, 70 and 102-novies of the Italian Copyright Law.
In rejecting the motion by Lega, the Court ruled that simulations of actions carried out using the video game could not be classified as highlights based on the relevant definition contained in article 2, paragraph 1 of Legislative Decree no. 9 of 9 January 2008, which governs the ownership and marketing of sports audiovisual rights.
The Court then emphasised that, in the case in question, the subject of protection was not the football match itself or the specific actions on the field – which are not works protected by copyright – but the related audiovisual recordings. The reconstruction of the actions through video games did not therefore involve a prohibited reproduction of such recordings, but an independent representation, characterised by structural differences compared to the official highlights, considering, among other things, that the concept of “graphic processing” implies an activity carried out on pre-existing real images, while the content proposed by the gamer derived from a distinct creative process, based on the use of gaming software and not on audiovisual recordings of the matches.
The Court also ruled out the existence of unfair competition, noting that the gamer had not operated as a professional in the sector, considering that the earnings from his social media activity were marginal, with no concrete elements of competition with respect to the activities of Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A.