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On 7 October 2008, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (national audiovisual regulatory authority - CSA) delivered the opinion requested by the Government on draft legislation to modernise the public-sector audiovisual scene currently being discussed in Parliament, which raises a number of issues. The CSA was concerned about the France Télévisions holding company becoming a single company - a move it had not been consulted about in advance - and commented on the importance of the company’s lists of missions and duties guaranteeing respect for the identity of each of the channels, the absence...

Les Infiltrés is a discussion programme based on reporting carried out exclusively using concealed cameras aimed at “gaining access to information revealing dysfunctions of French society that are being kept secret, by means of ‘infiltration’ by a journalist” that has a keen following among the public but is less appreciated by professionals. After the national syndicate of journalists had been disparaging about the method used, recalling the specific features of public-sector audiovisual services and the ethical principles that require journalists to make use of this type of procedure only on...

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...