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As stated in the law of 3 December 2020, the French Government is preparing to adopt an ordinance transposing Copyright Directive 2019/790 into French law by the summer. In particular, the new rules applicable to online platforms under the controversial Article 17 of the directive will need to be transposed. This article stipulates that, in future, content-sharing platforms will be liable for the unauthorised communication of copyright-protected content unless they conclude remuneration agreements with the rightsholder or make best efforts to block access to such content or remove it from their...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has delivered a judgment on the rights and duties and responsibilities of journalists and online media when publishing illegal recordings containing private and intimate information. The case concerns the judicial orders requiring the news website Mediapart to remove transcripts and tapes of conversations that had been illegally recorded at the home of Ms Bettencourt, the principal shareholder of the L’Oréal group. The ECtHR found the exposure of the illegal recordings to be of such a serious nature that the judicial orders to remove them...

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters a new phase, with vaccinations becoming available and new mutations of the virus being discovered, the French Government has continued to support the audiovisual sector, which has suffered long-term harm because of the health crisis. In a decree published on 30 December 2020, a special support fund was created for certain audiovisual production companies whose filming on French soil was interrupted, delayed or abandoned when one or more indispensable individuals, such as production team members, were unable to work due to the COVID-19 virus. This one-off fund is...

A judgment issued on 6 January 2021 by the 1st civil chamber of the Court of Cassation put an end to the dispute between the production company responsible for the film Grâce à Dieu (By the Grace of God) and the main character portrayed in the film, Father Preynat, who was indicted in 2016 on suspicion of sexually abusing minors between 1986 and 1991 while he was a priest in the diocese of Lyons. The film tells the story, in a fictional format, of three of the priest’s alleged victims. In January 2019, the priest lodged an application for emergency proceedings, demanding that...

The torrent of anti-Semitic tweets targeting the Miss France runner-up on the evening of the beauty pageant on 20 December 2020 once again brought into sharp focus the need to strengthen the tools available to combat online hate speech in France. The law to combat hate speech on the Internet, known as the “Avia law”, of 24 June 2020, which required social networks to remove manifestly illegal hate speech within 24 hours (or one hour in some cases), was almost entirely rejected by the Constitutional Council. One of the few provisions to escape criticism concerned the creation of a “parquet...