Search results : 1153

Shortly after the Prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, was murdered in Ajaccio in February 1998, an issue of the weekly magazine Paris-Match featured an article entitled “ La République assassinée ” (The murdered Republic). The article was illustrated by a photograph of the Prefect’s body lying on the road, facing the camera. The widow and children of Prefect Erignac sought injunctions against several companies, including the publishing company of Paris-Match , Hachette Filipacchi Associés. They contended that publication of the photograph of the bloodied and...

On 30 May 2007, the court of cassation delivered an important decision on trademark law in a dispute between two television companies. The case involved the company Paris Première, which operates a channel of the same name, and since 1995 has owned a semi-figurative brand name consisting of the name "Paris Première" on a rectangular background in a black band beneath an orange-coloured band, used to designate the broadcasting and production of television programmes and the operating of channels or programmes. The company had previously failed, before the court of appeal, in the case it had brought...

In France, a large-scale offensive has been launched by various financial beneficiaries against video sharing sites on the Internet (YouTube, Dailymotion, Myspace, etc) because they have been allowing the circulation of the works of the beneficiaries (films, series, etc) on their sites with neither authorisation nor remuneration. The platforms have been sheltering behind the “immunity” granted to hosts under the Act for Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN) of 21 June 2004. Under Article 6-I-2 of the Act, the latter’s liability may not be invoked if they “did not have effective knowledge of...

The Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (French audiovisual regulatory authority - CSA) has delivered its first decisions in the procedure for settling differences between editors and distributors of services as organised by the Decree of 29 August 2006, in application of Article 17-1 of the Act of 30 September 1986 on the freedom of communication. The CSA had received fourteen applications from editors of channels broadcast on terrestrially broadcast digital television concerning their numbering on the cable and satellite distribution networks. The channels at issue (including NRJ12, BFM TV, LCP-AN)...

Article 27 of the Act of 30 September 1986 on audiovisual communication provides that a decree (in this case the Decree of 17 January 1990) shall lay down the general principles concerning “the broadcasting, particularly during peak air time, in proportions at least equal to 60% of cinematographic and audiovisual works of European origin and in proportions at least equal to 40% of cinematographic and audiovisual works originally made in the French language”. The French audiovisual regulatory authority ( Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel - CSA) is allowed to use, instead of “peak air time” (6 to...