Taxing the Cloud Means Taxing Possibilities – HuffPost
I’m pleased to share that my latest op-ed has been published on HuffPost Italia. In this piece, I reflect on a proposal currently under discussion in Italy: extending the private copy levy to cloud services. Beyond the technicalities, this raises a broader and more concerning question about how we regulate innovation and protect creativity.
You can read the full article here, or below is a summary.
Taxing the Cloud Means Taxing Possibilities
Italy is considering extending its “private copy levy” to cloud services, digital spaces where individuals and businesses store photos, documents, and data. The rationale is simple: since cloud storage could be used to host copies of copyrighted content, providers should contribute to compensating creators.
At first glance, this seems reasonable. Protecting creativity and ensuring fair remuneration for authors is essential for innovation and economic growth. Copyright plays a fundamental role in enabling creators to sustain their work.
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However, the proposed approach introduces a problematic principle: it does not target actual behavior, but potential use.
Today, cloud services are primarily used to store personal and professional content—family photos, work files, backups, not pirated movies or music. Yet the levy would apply universally, based on the assumption that users might engage in private copying.
This effectively turns a targeted compensation mechanism into a generalized charge on digital infrastructure.
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Taken to its logical conclusion, the principle becomes difficult to contain. If a technology can be taxed because it might host copyrighted content, then many everyday tools could fall under a similar logic, from devices to storage media.
The economic implications are also clear. Such costs are unlikely to remain with providers; they will be passed on to users—households, students, professionals, and small businesses—while potentially undermining a country’s attractiveness in terms of digital investment and regulatory certainty.
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Protecting creativity is necessary. But it requires precise, evidence-based tools: fighting piracy, improving licensing frameworks, and fostering fair agreements between platforms and creators.
Taxing infrastructure based on hypothetical uses risks achieving the opposite.
It shifts the focus from real problems to abstract possibilities and, in doing so, risks taxing innovation itself.
