France

[FR] Combating piracy: French audiovisual groups appeal to Facebook and Twitter

IRIS 2015-6:1/17

Amélie Blocman

Légipresse

On 6 May 2015, the audiovisual groups TF1, Canal +, M6 and France Télévisions, as well as the Association de Lutte contre la Piraterie Audiovisuelle (association to combat audiovisual piracy - ALPA) sent a letter to the CEO’s of Facebook and Twitter pointing out the need to introduce filtering mechanisms and steps to combat piracy on their sites. Copies were also sent to Minister for Culture, Fleur Pellerin. The representatives of the main French editors and producers of audiovisual and cinematographic works said they were alarmed by the new functions set up by both Facebook (368 million videos viewed by French Internet users) and Twitter (6.5 million active users in France) allowing users to put video content online. According to the signatories, these new functions will “inevitably lead to an increase in the number of videos put online unlawfully, particularly those infringing copyright on audiovisual and cinematographic works and television programmes”. They also recalled that the video-sharing platforms (including YouTube and Dailymotion) were setting up automatic systems to recognise and filter videos posted online by their members, and making it possible for rightsholders to use them free of charge so that the systems could be supplied with imprints, thereby reducing the amount of copyright-infringing material being put online. YouTube and Dailymotion have also introduced sanctions whereby the accounts of those of their members who fail to abide by the ban on posting content for which they do not hold the corresponding rights may be closed. Encouraged by these practices aimed at reducing piracy, the signatories of the letters feel it is “imperative” that Facebook and Twitter “set up a genuine sanctions policy and apply it to their members when claims are made in respect of intellectual property rights”. More particularly, they believe it is not enough to adopt “a passive attitude consisting of merely deleting the videos individually, at the specific request of the rightsholders” and are therefore calling on the platforms to implement automatic filtering technologies (for audio and video) on their own platforms using the recognition of digital imprints deposited in advance by their rightsholders, so that videos infringing copyright could be blocked. The platforms were invited to use the filtering tools developed by the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (national audiovisual institute - INA), as used by Dailymotion, and to take advantage of the experiences of the television channels in using these tools. The French channels also referred to the legal risks, i.e. failure to set up such measures aimed at preventing piracy would lay the sites and social networks open to being held liable by the courts, which “were handing down substantial sentences”. It remains to be seen over the coming months whether this “helpful gesture” will result in closer collaboration between the television channels and the two Internet giants.