Copyright vs parody: the fair balance doctrine in front of the Italian Supreme Court

The case decided by the Corte di Cassazione (ord. 2022, n. 38165, Zorro case) provides an opportunity to reformulate the legal principle of prevalence of freedom of parody over copyright in the terms used by the Court of ustice of the EU (CJEU). The (magic) formula is the “fair balance between fundamental rights”. In the lexicon of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CRF), this is the balance between intellectual property (Article 17(2)) and freedom of expression and information (Article 11). In short, the EU-style fair balance doctrine officially becomes part of the interpretive and argumentative techniques of the Italian Supreme Court.