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The Court of Cassation has just delivered an eagerly awaited and noteworthy decision, pronouncing for the first time on the matter of the qualification - and hence the corresponding scheme of liability - of a service “hosting” personal websites on the Internet. The dispute was one of infringement of copyright, initiated by two famous strip cartoon editors against the company Tiscali (Telecom Italia), when they discovered that the entire adventures of Lucky Luke and Blake & Mortimer were being reproduced on personal websites operated by the IAP in question. Since the case originated before Directive...

On 10 June 2009, the Constitutional Council found that the power to suspend access to the Internet as punishment for the illegal downloading of works, as voted in the context of the “HADOPI” Act, could not be conferred on an independent administrative authority, in this case the high authority for the circulation of works and the protection of rights on the Internet (Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des Droits sur Internet - Hadopi) (see IRIS 2008-10: 10 and IRIS 2009-7: 12). The powers of the Hadopi, according to the original legislation, would lead to a restriction...

Instituted by the 2009 budget (Art. 131, codified in Art. 220 quaterdecies of the General Tax Code), this form of international tax credit is aimed at facilitating the filming and manufacture in France of cinematographic and audiovisual works initiated by a foreign producer and including elements that connect them to France’s culture, heritage or territory. The tax credit is granted to companies carrying out executive production of such works in France, subject to the work being approved by the national cinematographic centre (Centre National de la Cinématographie - CNC). It represents 20% of the...

Article 72 of the Act of 05 March 2009 on audiovisual communication authorises the Government to organise by decree a certain number of the provisions of the new legislation on the economic regulation of the cinema industry. Thus the Decree of 05 November 2009 has amended (or in some cases created) certain provisions of the new Code du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (Code for the Cinema and Animated Image - CCIA) (see IRIS 2009-9: 11). Firstly, the text redefines and improves the scheme for programming commitments the operators are required to observe. This is in order to adapt the original regulations...

At the end of 2007, with a view to adapting the regulations to recent developments in the audiovisual sector, the Ministry of Culture and Communication gave Mr Kessler and Mr Richard the task of consulting the sector’s professionals on amending the 2001 “Tasca” Decrees. The Decrees lay down the scheme for contributions from the editors of television services to the development of the production of European and French-language audiovisual works (see IRIS 2007-10: 13 and 2008-2: 12). The proposals that came out of their work made it possible to conclude agreements in November 2008 between the editors...