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In the European Union, there is no general principle for the use of copyright protected material comparable to the fair use/fair dealing principle in the US. Directive 2001/29/EC defines an optional, but exhaustive set of limitations from the author´s exclusive rights under the control of the “three-step test”. This is a clause in the Berne Convention that establishes three cumulative conditions to the limitations and exceptions of a copyright holder’s rights. The Directive has been transposed by Member States with significant freedom.

In Lithuania, Section 4 of Copyright Act 2003 contains a list of applicable exceptions and limitations.

It is reported that the public procurement process in Lithuania is not always transparent. There are persistent complaints that some tenders are so narrowly defined that they appear tailored to a specific company. The government has made procurement reform a top priority and is starting to improve transparency by implementing online public procurement of its central purchasing body, the central project management agency.

The European Regulation No. 1042/2013 amending the Council Implementing Regulation No. 282/2011, declares that from January 2015, all supplies of telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services will be taxable at the place where the customer belongs. These include, inter alia:
- images or text, such as photos, screensavers, e-books and other digitised documents e.g. PDF files;
- music, films and games, including games of chance and gambling games, and of programmes on demand;
- online magazines website supply or web hosting services distance maintenance of programmes and equipment;
- supplies of software and software updates advertising space on a website.

Both EU and non-EU suppliers have to register for VAT purposes and comply with the relevant obligations of the Member State where the customer is established, has his/her permanent address or usually resides. This may be burdensome as there are 81 VAT rates across the 28 EU countries and the rates may vary between 3% (Luxembourg) to 27% (Hungary) across member states. Furthermore, member states impose varying thresholds at which companies must begin paying VAT, ranging from EUR 0 to EUR 60,000.

As an alternative to obtaining multiple VAT registrations in each Member State where a supplier has a customer, affected suppliers may be able to opt to account for VAT across the EU via a a web-portal in the Member State in which they are identified. Hence, the system, known as the Mini One-Stop Shop (MOSS) scheme, allows taxable persons to avoid registering in each Member State of consumption.

The EU Copyright Directive allows “fair compensation” for copyright owners. As a result, several Member States have imposed national levy systems.

In Lithuania, remuneration is collected through levies on media and equipment. The importer is liable at the time of customs clearance, before the goods are placed in free circulation, unless otherwise provided for in an agreement between the importer and this collective rights management association. The producer is liable at the time of distribution from the factory. The persons are liable who carry out the first sale in Lithuanian territory.

The following levies apply, for example:
- Minidisc: 6% of first sale price per unit.
- All types of DVD and CD and Blu-Ray: 6% of first sale price per unit.
- USB and non-integrated memory cards from EUR 0.14 for < 1 GB to EUR 2.90 for > 32 GB.
- PC: EUR 5.79 per unit. For digital and analogue audio and video players with a memory device and audio and video recording capability (e.g. audio cassettes, VCRs, CDs, DVDs, MP3 players, MP4 players, HD media players and other players.
- TV with a memory device and audio and video recording capability; settop boxes with a memory device and audio and video recording capability etc.) duties from EUR 0.43 for < 1 GB to EUR 11.58 for > 1 TB apply.

Purchase of tobacco products via Internet is not allowed.

The registration of a .it domain names is permitted only to persons who have citizenship, residence or a registered office in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Vatican, the Republic of San Marino and Switzerland.

The European de minimis threshold for import duties is harmonized. Goods with a value of up to 128 SDR / 150 EUR / 186 USD are exempted from customs duties. The VAT de minimis threshold is not harmonized within the EU and can vary between 10 and 22 EUR, i.e. Member States can decide on a value within this range to grant an exemption on VAT for imported goods.

According to Italy's de minimis rule, goods with a value of up to 19 SDR / 22 EUR / 27 USD are exempted from VAT.

The EU Directive on Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) covers traditional broadcasting services as well as audiovisual media services provided on-demand, including via the Internet. According to the AVMS Directive on-demand services are not subject to any explicit, strict content quota, but Article 13 imposes on Member States the obligation to ensure that on-demand service providers promote European works. The Directive has been implemented by Member States in different ways, ranging from very extensive and detailed measures to a mere reference to the general obligation to promote European works.

In Italy, Article 13 has been implemented via two options. Audiovisual Media Service (AVMS) providers have the choice to either ensure that 20% of their catalogue consists of European works, or to provide financial contributions to the production or rights acquisition of European work, usually by investing in the production or rights acquisition of the latter.

Italy, Czech Republic, and Slovenia, which apply financial contributions as one option among others, report that up to now none of their operators have chosen that option.

The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) found evidence of blocking or charging extra for the provision of VoIP services in mobile networks by certain mobile operators in Italy.

The European Court of Justice has interpreted in 2014 that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be ordered by national courts to block customer access to a copyright-infringing website. This ruling aims to limit online piracy.

The Italian Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) can request the take down or blocking of copyright infringement material. A criminal court in Rome blocked access in Italy to several websites for copyright infringement, including Mega (a cloud storage service) and the Russian Internet giant Mail.ru.

An Italian court convicted three Google Inc. executives (Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer, its chief privacy counsel and the company's former chief financial officer) to a six-month jail sentence for violation of data protection laws by allowing a video of students bullying a disabled boy to air on the Google Video site. The prosecutors argued that because Google handled user data — and used content to generate advertising revenue — it was a content provider, not a service provider, and therefore broke Italian privacy law.Tthe Court of Appeals of Milan on 21 December 2012 ruled that “no crime has been committed” and exonerated the three executives.

In Italy, the Civil Court of Rome also considered that a video-sharing site could not benefit from a liability exemption. The court stated that YouTube was not to be regarded as a hosting provider but as a "digital broadcaster" and was consequently considered fully responsible for the published content. YouTube would play an active role and would not limit its activities to providing server space for users to independently upload and organise content.

The European Court of Justice has interpreted in 2014 that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be ordered by national courts to block customer access to a copyright-infringing website. This ruling aims to limit online piracy.

In Italy, the Legislative Decree No.70 implements almost verbatim the E-commerce Directive. It stipulates that ISPs cannot remove or disable access before receiving "communication of the competent authority". However, there is a growing jurisprudential trend upholding harsh copyright enforcement measures against intermediaries.

An Italian court convicted three Google Inc. executives (Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer, its chief privacy counsel and the company's former chief financial officer) to a six-month jail sentence for violation of data protection laws by allowing a video of students bullying a disabled boy to air on the Google Video site. The prosecutors argued that because Google handled user data — and used content to generate advertising revenue — it was a content provider, not a service provider, and therefore broke Italian privacy law. The Court of Appeals of Milan on 21 December 2012 ruled that “no crime has been committed” and exonerated the three executives.

Under the Directive on Data Retention, operators were required to retain certain categories of traffic and location data (excluding the content of those communications) for a period between six months and two years and to make them available, on request, to law enforcement authorities for the purposes of investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime and terrorism. On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) declared the Directive invalid. However, not all national laws which implemented the Directive have been overturned.

In Italy, the Directive has been implemented through an amendment to the Privacy Code effective as of August 2009 and still applying today. Under the Privacy Code, providers of a public communications network or a publicly available electronic communications service must retain "telephone traffic data" and "electronic communications traffic data" for 24 months or 12 months, respectively, for law enforcement purposes. A 30 day retention period applies in case of data related to unsuccessful calls processed on a provisional basis.