CISPE, together with industry associations EuroISPA and the European DIGITAL SME Alliance, co-signed a joint statement expressing serious concerns over recent legislative developments in Italy introducing a recurring copyright levy on cloud storage services. The recently published measure would apply a monthly fee per gigabyte and per user, alongside new reporting obligations for providers.
From CISPE’s perspective, introducing such a recurring charge on cloud storage risks setting a precedent across the EU and would seriously undermine EU objectives on digitalisation, competitiveness and cloud uptake. If replicated by other Member States, this approach could fragment the Single Market by imposing disproportionate administrative and financial burdens on cloud infrastructure providers, while distorting competition by mostly affecting local providers. Even worse, the Decree’s justification is lacking, as no evidence is provided of harm to rightsholders, even though this is an explicit requirement of EU law and recent case law for introducing a private copying levy.
CISPE therefore joins its co-signatories in calling for an urgent dialogue between the European Commission and Italy to assess the decree’s legality and implications. In the longer term, we also support a wider review of Directive 2001/29/EC to ensure a harmonised approach to copyright levies across the EU, avoiding divergent national regimes that risk undermining the functioning of the Single Market.