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An Internet site was making available to signed-up television viewers who asked for it a copy of television programmes one hour after they had been broadcast. Online digital video recorder or abusive profiteer of technology? The regional court in Paris reached a decision on 6 August 2008. The case had been brought by the television channels M6 and W9, which saw this service as direct competition for their catch-up TV service and a violation of the rights they had acquired for the recorded works, which meant that the court had to examine the nature of the service in question. Catch-up TV is the...

The Mulholland Drive case, which came up regularly in the debate on the lawfulness of downloading as a private copy and turned the spotlight on the issues involved in this new type of behaviour, has reached its epilogue. The court of cassation delivered its decision on 19 June, putting an end to the quarrel over the nature of the private copy – it is not a right but a “lawful exception to the principle prohibiting any reproduction in full or in part of a protected work made without the consent of the copyright holder”. Thus the exception of the private copy may be claimed as defence in proceedings...

A number of important changes have been made to the law governing the audiovisual sector over the summer in the form of non-specific legislation, including an act on modernising the economy, referred to as the LME. Article 142 of the Act of 4 August 2008 on modernising the economy has raised the anti-concentration thresholds applicable to audiovisual undertakings, thereby amending Article 39 of the Act of 30 September 1986 on the freedom of communication. Henceforth no single natural person or legal entity, acting alone or jointly, may hold directly or indirectly more than 49% of the capital or...

On 23 July the committee on the digital dividend delivered to the Prime Minister its report on the reallocation of the terrestrial frequencies that will gradually be released by the ceasing of analog broadcasting by 2011, the date of the switchover to all-digital. Following the recommendations put forward by the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (national audiovisual regulatory authority – CSA) in its contribution delivered a month ago, the committee is in favour of a “reservation of all the necessary broadcasting frequencies, i.e. most of the digital dividend, to enrich the offer of digital audiovisual...

On 17 June 2008, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (national audiovisual regulatory authority – CSA) published a deliberation on the exposure of tobacco products, alcoholic beverages and illegal drugs on the airwaves. Faced with the increased presence of tobacco, drugs and alcohol on television and radio, the CSA, as part of its mission to preserve public health and with the support of the Mission Interministérielle de Lutte contre la Drogue et la Toxicomanie (inter-ministerial mission to combat drugs and drug addiction – MILDT), has laid down the conditions for representing these substances...