Pursuant to the Copyright Law (Law no. 633 of 1941) the moral right to the authorship of a creation includes, among others, the power to require the author's name indication, in accordance with the forms of use of the creation or, alternatively, in accordance with the methods conventionally adopted in the sector concerned.

However, as recently reiterated by the Court of Milan, among the photographic works, the abovementioned power is recognised just in case of artistic photograph, namely that photograph which is evocative and representative of the personality of the author; on the contrary, in case of simple images, intended as mere reproductions of reality in which the author's own intellectual creation activity is not prominent with respect to its technical ability, the power to require the author's name indication is denied.

In fact, in photographic works, the "creative" aspect must be interpreted as intellectual activity, instead of mere technical skill of the author, every time that the play mode sends an additional message different than the objective representation crystallized, therefore making a subjective interpretation appropriate to distinguish it among other works with the same subject, or every time in which it expresses in an absolutely distinctive and individualizing way the author's person, but regardless of the subject reproduced.

However, even in the case in which it could be recognized a mere moral right above the simple photograph - at least in terms of the right of paternity - based on the general principle that every individual has the right to authorship of his or her actions, as well as under Articles. 87 et seq. of the copyright law, the photographer's mention must be made in accordance with the "forms of use", that are used to be conventionally adopted in a given sector of reference; which also means that - according to some forms of use - the author cannot be shown at all, without this violation of his moral rights.