Clifford Chance

The Sanremo Festival's future is uncertain after a court ruling against RAI's automatic production rights, highlighting key considerations for clients in intellectual property partnerships and strategic joint ventures.

In a surprising twist for Italian showbiz, the iconic festival that crowns the best Italian song faces an uncertain future. A recent court decision has challenged the longstanding production of the Sanremo Festival by RAI, the state owned television broadcaster: the Administrative Court of Genova concluded that Italy's most famous competition could be produced by someone other than RAI, which has in fact broadcasted all 73 editions of the event (and produced half of them) since 1951.

At the core of the dispute is a public law issue: is it lawful to give RAI the right to produce the event without a public tender being held? The Court said no, and ordered the Municipality of Sanremo to launch a public tender for the incoming editions (starting from 2026). But for the purpose of this article, we are not really interested in the answer to this question, which will come only in a couple of years, once all appeals have been completed.

What interests us is how we got to the current scenario, which is intrinsically related to IP and the strategy – or lack thereof – around IP in cooperation or joint business venture between different partners.

The Festival

When it started in 1951, the "Festival di Sanremo", also known as "Festival Italiano della Canzone" (the Italian Song Festival), was a local competition meant to boost the winter economy of the coastal town of Sanremo, in Liguria. Over the years, it has grown into Italy's most popular music event, and served as the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest. The festival is renowned for introducing new songs and musical styles, and has become a significant cultural event, attracting international stars and millions of viewers annually.

RAI has played a pivotal role in the growing popularity and significance of the Festival di Sanremo, serving as the event's official broadcaster and, in the last three decades, producer and organiser. It handles the production, promotion, and live transmission of the Festival across its television, radio, and online platforms.

The IP around the Festival

The Municipality of Sanremo and RAI have regulated the organisation of the Festival through several agreements during the years. The 5 December 2024 decision of the Administrative Court of Genova, however, explains that the allocation of IP rights in relation to the Festival has not always been clear: in 2000, the Municipality of Sanremo applied to register the trademark "Festival Italiano della Canzone" (interestingly, the trademark has no reference to Sanremo, to ensure that its Festival is perceived as the Italian Festival and not one of the Italian festivals). RAI has consistently tolerated this approach, and did not oppose to the registration. In fact, since then, to organize the event, RAI pays to the Municipality of Sanremo consideration for the license in the trademark "Festival Italiano della Canzone" (a fixed-fee, plus royalties based on the income generated to RAI by the event).

At the same time, particularly in the last decades, the role of RAI in the Festival has increased: RAI is no longer merely the broadcaster of the event, it is also the producer and creator of its (ever-changing) format. RAI has invested significantly to design the event, to market it to the (ever-changing) target audience, and to hire staff, musicians, orchestra directors and all personnel needed for the production.

As RAI argued in the proceedings before the Administrative Court of Genova, RAI is "the only entity in the position to claim legitimate ownership in the format" as copyrightable work; RAI further explained that by "format" it meant: "unreleased songs in Italian; defined location (the Municipality of Sanremo); annual event; specific structure: five consecutive evenings over the course of a week, in the period between the end of January and the beginning of March, with the last evening on Saturday dedicated to crowning the winner; two juries, one popular and one made of experts; singers/competitors divided into two categories ("Champions" and "New Entries"); a main host, who is also  the artistic director,  sided by several other presenters; a well-defined sequence in the presentation of the contestants: name of the song, name of the composers of the musical part, name of the authors of the text, name of the orchestra director designated by the record company and name of the performing artist; awarding of a main prize to the song most voted by the juries, delivered by the host and the Mayor of Sanremo on the final day of Saturday, and other ancillary prizes (best lyrics, best musical composition, best arrangement, best interpretation and award to the artist with the most votes during the special evening); scenography, including an iconic staircase from which artists, presenters and guests enter the stage,  imposing orchestra pit, equipped with at least fifty elements and including the following sections: rhythm, keyboards, winds, and strings as well as back-up singers."

The Impasse

Based on the above, the trademark and format of the event are separate IP rights with separate ownerships. One could then argue that, in principle, the Municipality of Sanremo could organize the Italian Song Festival with a different producer and different format and that RAI could organize a song festival using its proprietary format but with a different name.

Well, both RAI and the Municipality of Sanremo disagree. Based on their argument, the IP allocations are so interconnected that each element depends on other and the event needs both to exist: RAI even argues that RAI and the Municipality of Sanremo have developed "joint ownership" of the broader "whole concept", which does not coincide with either of its single parts, the trademark and the format. The Administrative Court of Genova rejected this notion of "joint ownership" over the whole concept. However, even without this notion, it is likely true that the Festival is organized through a cross-license structure over the long-lasting relationship between RAI and Municipality of Sanremo.

In other words, we are now in a classic (IP)  impasse where:

• A festival organized in Sanremo under the brand "Festival Italiano della Canzone" with a producer other than RAI would be in any case subject to RAI's claim of copyright infringement over the format; and
• A song festival organized by RAI in any other municipalities would still be subject to Sanremo's claim of trademark infringement because any Italian festival organized by RAI is a misappropriation of the goodwill attached to the trademark. 

A standoff which seems to be perfectly conceived to prolong the status quo, which is a quite successful one. Some publicly available reports estimate that, during the week of the Festival, in mid-winter, the town of San Remo attracts more than 180,000 visitors; RAI gains approximately Euro 50 million in advertising revenues, with profits generally around Euro 19 million, more or less  similar to the average cost of production for the event. Which is not bad, for a town of 55,000 habitants that only otherwise comes to life in spring and summer.

Learning opportunities

This interesting case provides learning opportunities for nearly any kind of IP-heavy partnership.

• Before - Don't forget to regulate in advance the allocation of the IP rights when cooperating with different partners: you know those clauses on background IP / foreground IP that sometimes look strange and helplessly painful to negotiate with that weird IP nerd expert? Well, a clear clause of that kind would have been extremely helpful in this case.
• During - If the  cooperation is long-term, do ensure you periodically revisit the deal : if the partnership has developed into something that deviates from the original structure, renegotiating the allocation of the IP rights is often necessary, as the old regime may not capture the new IP;
• Always - Your acts (and omissions) count: if your partner decides unilaterally to register an IP right, think prospectively, perhaps it is not a big thing now – plus, you have such a good relationship, why starting a conflict !? – but twenty years later the snowball is an iceberg that makes navigation difficult.