“Gomorra”, a small compensation payment for the copied articles: little impact on the book’s success

Ten thousand euros in compensation for newspaper articles reproduced without citing the source in the book *Gomorra* by Roberto Saviano. The Court of Cassation has dismissed Libra Editrice’s appeal against the decision of the Naples Court of Appeal which, in 2024 (judgement 1033/2024), had set the compensation at 10,000 euros in favour of the company that publishes the daily newspapers ‘Corriere di Caserta’ and ‘Cronache di Napoli’. The legal dispute began in 2008 with the filing of a lawsuit against the Neapolitan writer and Arnoldo Mondadori Spa, the author and publisher of the book ‘Gomorra: A Journey into the Economic Empire and the Dream of Domination of the Camorra’.

Subject of the dispute the unauthorised reproduction in the text of the work of certain articles published in the daily newspapers ‘Corriere di Caserta’ and ‘Cronache di Napoli’. A collage of the articles published by Libra, often reproduced verbatim and faithfully, without any attribution to the newspapers or the authors of the articles used. An oversight which was partially rectified following complaints from Libra, starting with the 11th edition. In 2024, the Naples Court of Appeal, following a referral from the Court of Cassation – which had deemed the €6,000 awarded to be inadequate compensation – revised the sums due for plagiarism in the best-seller, which sold 2.25 million copies in Italia alone and around 10 million worldwide, generating enormous profits – as highlighted in the appeal – to the point of becoming a genuine brand, thanks also to the film and the television series inspired by the novel.  

A success which, according to the Regional Court, was far greater than that of the reproduced articles ‘considering, first and foremost, the purely quantitative aspect, given that the unlawfully reproduced articles are very brief compared to the book *Gomorra* and concern aspects that are, to say the least, marginal in comparison with the multitude of topics covered therein’. The appeal judges also emphasise ‘Saviano’s undeniable skill in reworking the articles and incorporating them into a far more extensive work characterised by particular literary merit’.

With regard to the failure to cite the sources of the two articles reproduced in the book, it should ‘be borne in mind, moreover, that in the first case the infringement lasted for a very short time (until October 2006), whilst in the second case it was nevertheless specified that an article published in a local newspaper was being reproduced, although the name of the newspaper was not given; in this case too the infringement came to an end in 2016 with the source being cited”.

In the judges’ view, the amount of profit made by the infringer is merely one factor ‘in the equitable determination of damages, which must necessarily be adjusted in accordance with the contribution made by the infringer to the work’s success’. These considerations have, on this occasion, been endorsed by the Court of Cassation.