Search results : 1106

On 31 January 2007, following on from the Senate decision last November (see IRIS 2007-1: 10), the National Assembly adopted the bill on the television of the future, to which the Government had applied the urgent procedure (one single reading in each House). However, only the UMP group, which has an absolute majority in the Assembly, voted in its favour. The Act creates the necessary legal framework allowing, from March 2008, the discontinuation of analogue signals in favour of digital broadcasting, with the changeover to be completed by 30 November 2011. Despite vigorous protests from the independent...

On 30 January, the court of cassation delivered a judgment, one that was both anticipated and noteworthy, concerning the conditions under which a sequel to a work may or may not be produced. In the case at issue, the dispute was between an heir of Victor Hugo and the author of two novels presented as “sequels” to Victor Hugo’s work Les Misérables. In France, the moral right - unlike pecuniary rights which lapse 70 years after the death of the author - is “perpetual, inalienable and not subject to limitation in terms of time. On the author’s death it is transmitted to the author’s heirs” (Art. L....

On 11 October 2000, the Paris Criminal Court found Mr. Noël Mamère, a leading member of the ecologist party Les Verts and Member of Parliament, guilty of having publicly defamed Mr. Pellerin, the director of the Central Service for Protection against Ionising Radiation (SCPRI). Mr. Mamère was ordered to pay a fine of FRF 10,000 (app. EUR 1,525). The Paris Court of Appeal upheld the conviction considering that Mr. Mamère’s comments during a television programme were defamatory as they had compromised Mr. Pellerin’s “honour and reputation” by accusing him of repeatedly having “knowingly provided,...

The first decree implementing the "DADVSI" Act on copyright and related rights in the information society of 1 August 2006 (see IRIS 2006-8: 13) has now been published. Regarding the "criminal punishment of certain infringements of copyright and related rights", the text adds Articles R. 335-3 and R. 335-4 to the Intellectual Property Code. Its purpose is to punish two types of behaviour - the possession or use of devices permitting firstly, the circumvention of a technical means of protection and secondly, the suppression of one or more elements of information that accompany the work, and which...

In the opinion of UFC-Que Choisir, one of the most important associations for consumer protection in France, "DRM technology is a total disaster for consumers and for the development of the market for online music". For several months, the association has been spearheading a fierce battle against technical means of protecting works (DRM devices). The main object of the battle is to achieve the interoperability of platforms for downloading music and players, i.e. to prevent the development of the model of a single online sales platform associated with a single brand of players, as is the case with...