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In recent months a French comedian has brought a number of cases against video share sites showing extracts of his DVDs. The cases were always rejected, but he continued his crusade and his perseverance has finally paid off - two recent decisions leave a glimmer of hope of effective recourse for beneficiaries against platforms of this type. Based not on counterfeiting but on the reactivity of hosts, which was made an obligation by the Act of 21 June 2004 on confidence in the digital economy, the decision in the case of Lafesse v YouTube delivered on 14 November 2008 concluded that the platform...

Wizzgo, the service for recording television programmes on-line, has suffered a number of legal blows, the most recent of which has been financially fatal. With successive cases brought against it by M6 and W9 (see IRIS 2008-9: 9), France Télévisions (6 and 14 November 2008), NT1 (10 November 2008) and TF1 (14 November 2008), the service was first refused the benefit of the exception for making a private copy and prohibited from reproducing or making available the programmes of the channels in question, before the court held that the reproduction of the channels’ logos constituted brand counterfeiting...

On 4 November the Conseil d’Etat rejected the application made by a cinematographic distribution company for the cancellation of the classification certificate issued one year earlier by the Minister for Culture for the film Quand l’Embryon Part Braconner that required that the film was not to be shown to anyone under the age of 18 years. The applicant felt that the decision, based on the violent and pornographic nature of the film, was disproportionate and flawed by a manifest error of appreciation. Backed by the national federation of film distributors, the applicant claimed that “the use of...

On 29 September 2008 the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory authority - CSA) published its report on the place occupied by the cinema in the best television viewing figures. In its report, the CSA compared the audience figures for full-length feature films broadcast on television from 1994 to 2007 and reached the alarming conclusion that the presence of the cinema on French television channels is in decline. It noted that the number of cinematographic works in the category of the 100 best viewing figures had been divided by three in the space of 14 years, falling within...

The “Tasca Decrees” are regulations aimed at developing and maintaining a fabric of ‘independent producers’ for television channels in order to preserve the diversity of French production. They ensure for producers a set of inalienable rights in order to ensure not only their survival but also their development. They are based on restrictions not only on the rights that the channels may acquire but also on the new work they may commission, and make it possible to preserve a degree of independence in the financing and content of French production. Disparaged by some yet considered as being almost...