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On 12 October 2007, Denis Olivennes, who has been in charge of a mission “to combat illegal downloading” since 5 September 2007 (see IRIS 2007-9: 14), submitted a progress report to the Minister for Culture. The members of the mission have interviewed representatives of economic beneficiaries, Internet access providers (IPs), consumers and distributors of content, and all have confirmed their desire to achieve a common solution that would make it possible to both prevent piracy, and further develop the level of offer of lawful content. More specifically, the positions set out during these talks...

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...