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On 8 October 2007, the French Minister for Culture, Christine Albanel, took advantage of the MIPCOM international programmes market in Cannes to announce "the updating and amendment of the framework of regulations set up in 1986", which will be combined with "measures to ensure better quality". She said that the future of French fiction lay in a rapidly changing context, and that this called for new resources and tools to better stimulate the revival of the programme industry in France. The launch of three complementary expertises were announced. The first covers the definition of the "economic...

The current conflict between Canal+ and Neuf Cegetel highlights the sometimes tense relationship that exists between owners of encrypted channels and Internet access providers (IPs) concerning television broadcast over ADSL. On the one hand, the IPs would like to be able to market channels in the capacity of a digital television services distributor as they see fit. On the other hand, companies such as Canal+, a satellite television group that has a quasi-monopoly in the market for pay television, wish to retain their exclusivity for broadcasting their channels. It is in this context that, in a...

The court of appeal in Aix en Provence, designated as the court for referral following cassation in the “Aurélien D.” case, has recently delivered its decision. Aurélien D., a student, was being prosecuted for having downloaded and copied 488 films from CD-ROMs that he had borrowed from friends. He had been discharged after judgements on the merits of the case (regional court in Rodez - see IRIS 2004-10: 10, and court of appeal in Montpellier - see IRIS 2005-4: 10) on the grounds that “the films at issue had only been for the private use of the defendant, and were not intended for collective use”....

In the letter of instruction sent by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Christine Albanel, the new Minister for Culture and Communication, on 1 August, he sets out the “priority objectives” that he intends to pursue in order to keep the promises made during the presidential campaign. These include the setting up of a plan to rescue the music industry and to protect the cultural industries that benefit from copyright. On 5 September, the Minister officially entrusted Denis Olivennes, chairman and managing director of FNAC, with the task of “combating unlawful downloading and developing lawful...

Seven years ago, the company UGC launched the first annual cinema season ticket. This cost FRF 98.00 (15 euros) a month and gave unlimited access to the 350 cinemas in the company’s network (see IRIS 2000-8: 9). Its competitors (Pathé, Gaumont in conjunction with MK2) were very quick to follow, launching their own unlimited annual season tickets. The scheme immediately caused an outcry on the part of both the independent operators and the beneficiaries, who feared serious distortion in competition and a loss of earnings from the remuneration granted to distributors, producers and authors. The public...