Areas of Use

Film, Television, and Theatre Set Design

Set design encompasses everything that appears within the frame captured by a camera or forms the backdrop of a theatrical stage. Bringing beauty into a scene enhances every element, helping audiences immerse themselves in the work and creating settings that amplify the power of the performance itself.

Set designers know well that it's not only the music and skill of the performers that determine a production's success, but also what surrounds and envelops them. Numerous industry professionals have found in us a valuable partner capable of offering the most sought-after material along with all necessary guarantees of protection and proper usage.

Exhibition and Event Installations

Our rich archive has always been at the complete disposal of event organizers and art exhibition curators who understand how important the aesthetic component is on such occasions. The installation must strike, be remembered, and connect directly with the public, transforming into an all-encompassing experience.

Whether it's an event or exhibition dedicated to film posters, a particular artist, or an actor's career, film posters help trace the evolution of aesthetic taste from years past to today. This remarkable representative capacity, combined with the artistic identity they've earned over time, has made them the most sought-after and beloved protagonists for countless curators.

Editorial Projects

Images are a highly effective communication tool whether they depict objects, places, or people, or represent abstract elements. Used as covers or within more elaborate layouts, posters connect with text, enhancing its meaning and emotion.

They evoke memories of bygone times, rich with passion and cultural fervor, bringing emotional engagement to a higher level. Industry professionals who choose to trust us know they can find extremely rare works and rely on the professionalism of a team capable of providing perfectly restored images.

Graphic Design Projects

Posters are often used for creating vinyl or DVD covers, for printing fabrics used in fashion or interior design, or for producing various merchandise.

The graphic application of these images spans from one field to another with complete ease and naturalness. Their versatile communicative capacity has taken them from being graphic works themselves to becoming the identifying element of a sociocultural context to be inserted into other projects. In this context, they detach from being works of art to transform into symbols of an era and its emotions.

Interior Design

Furnishing spaces means not only considering the shape, style, and color of furniture, but also giving proper importance to what hangs on the wall. Whether the desired style is classic or modern, a painting or print can give character to a space, offering the possibility of adding a touch of timeless elegance.

This is the main reason that in recent years has led many interior designers to turn to us to give personality to spaces, whether private or public, thanks to high-definition and perfectly restored prints. After all, if a decorator knows well that surrounding oneself with beautiful things has countless positive effects on mood, we know that offering the best to our clients fills us with pride and satisfaction.

Why a License Is Required

The vast majority of film posters you find online cannot be used without a usage license granted by the rights holder.

Every time an image from a film is used, including posters, it is necessary to request a usage license from whoever holds the rights.

Unauthorized use of posters by those who do not hold the property rights is sanctioned at civil, administrative, and criminal levels. It is therefore essential to identify the true holder of the rights to the works you wish to use.

With us, authorized licensors of such precious material, you can enrich your projects without taking any risks.

Copyright Law

Copyright is an innate right, obtained automatically at the moment of the work's creation, which protects literary and artistic property throughout the world.

Italian law addresses this through Law No. 633 of April 22, 1941, on copyright:

"Works of creative intellectual expression belonging to literature, music, visual arts, architecture, theatre, and cinema are protected by copyright, whatever their mode or form of expression may be." (Translated from Italian law)

Copyright consists of two components:

• Moral rights: which allow claiming authorship of the work and opposing any deformation or modification
• Property rights: which consist of the exclusive right to economically exploit the work, limiting its reproduction, distribution, or adaptation.

The author of a work can transfer their property rights to another party who, officially becoming the owner, can dispose of them as they wish. The term "copyright" should not be taken literally because the actual author of the image does not necessarily coincide with the holder of the exploitation rights.

Copyright: The Right to Copy

The term copyright, which generically refers to copyright law, protects posters as works of creative intellectual expression in Italy as well as in many other countries worldwide.

More precisely, this term should be used with reference to U.S. law which regulates the right to copy a work, privileging aspects of economic exploitation.

"The reproduction of a work constitutes a form of economic use protected by Article 13 of the law protecting copyright."

Despite the regulation explicitly referring to economic return, even in the absence of profit motive, using a protected work still requires obtaining consent from the rights holder.

Our Rights

The school of Italian Master Poster Painters is appreciated worldwide for its extremely high artistic level. Throughout much of the 20th century, these painters created nearly all the poster images used for film releases in Italy.

Article 12 of Italian Copyright Law establishes that the right to economically exploit a work of intellectual expression belongs exclusively to its Author. Being free to dispose of it, they can transfer this right to another party. The Master Painters acquired the rights to their works originally.

During the period from the 1930s through the 1990s, promotion of new film releases occurred through posters created independently by the Master Painters themselves after the film's completion. Once the works were finished, the Master Painters offered Distribution Companies temporary usage licenses limited exclusively to "theatrical" exploitation (i.e. in movie theaters).

After the "theatrical" period ended, the vast majority of the Master Painters, or their heirs, transferred the usage and economic exploitation rights of the works they created to S.A.C. S.r.l., which in turn licensed these same rights to its concessionaire Webphoto S.r.l.

As of 2024, S.A.C. S.r.l. incorporated Webphoto S.r.l., becoming SacWebphoto S.r.l., holder of both the rights acquired from S.A.C. and those acquired from Webphoto.

SacWebphoto S.r.l. therefore has the authority to grant usage licenses, for temporary uses and limited to specific purposes, for these image utilization rights. In particular, it holds licensable images of posters from approximately 20,000 films released in Italy during the period 1930–1995.

How to Obtain a License

To avoid breaking the law, it is very important to understand the regulations for proper image usage. From publishing to exhibitions, from television productions to film or documentary productions, all the way to set design and fashion show installations.

You can request a usage license directly from the page of each poster in our archive, or contact us for more information.