Lucio Battisti's music will soon be streaming on Spotify and Apple Music

Lucio Battisti is perhaps the most beloved singer-songwriter in Italy. He is definitely the most elusive. Shy and reserved when he was alive, he is almost invisible to a whole new generation of people used to listening to music in streaming. His songs, immortal hits like Il mio canto libero or Mi ritorni in mente, are not for sale nor can they be found on iTunes, Spotify or any other similar service, but things may be about to change. 

According to an article published on Corriere della Sera, last Tuesday Gaetano Presti, the administrator appointed by the Court of Milan, of the company Edizioni Musicali Acqua Azzurra, which owns the rights to the 12 historical albums Battisti-Mogol, informed the SIAE "the extension of the mandate also to the collection of rights on the web". This means that soon the artist's archive will be available online.

The decision comes after a long legal battle between those who hold the rights of those songs: Universal for 35%, Mogol for 9% and the heirs (Grazia Letizia Veronese and her son Luca) for the remaining 56% who are strongly against the digitization of the works of the musician. Pro streaming is, instead, Giulio Rapetti, aka Mogol, co-author with Battisti of several songs that, commenting on the lawsuits about the rights with the heirs of his friend, has always argued that the most penalized by the overly conservative management of the archive of Lucio were young people and popular culture. Last year nss magazine, together with Ciao-Discoteca Italiana, supported an online petition to promote the digitization of Battisti's albums and, now, our hopes could become reality. Fingers crossed!