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The regional court in Le Havre has fined an Internet user EUR 500 for making music files available to the public on a peer-to-peer network. This was in line with the sentence proposed by the State prosecutor under the “court appearance with prior admission of guilt” procedure - more commonly called the “pleading guilty” procedure - introduced by the Act of 9 March 2004 adapting court procedure to changes in criminality, under whichthe person admits the facts held against him and accepts the sentence(s) proposed by the State prosecutor. In the present case, the accused admitted having offered to...

In a judgment on 7 September 2005, the regional court in Paris ordered the encrypted channel Canal Plus, the production company 2P2L and the journalist Ruth Elkrief to pay EUR 150 000 in damages as compensation for the financial losses suffered by two journalists who had created a new concept for a political programme used, virtually unaltered, by the channel without their authorisation. The concept involves presenting a plausible major crisis in the form of fictional coverage and asking specialists and politicians to comment on how the situation should be dealt with; it was lodged with the French...

Following the realisation that French exports of audiovisual programmes have been stagnating and perhaps even regressing since 2001, Mr Eric Moniot, a senior civil servant at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finances and Industry, was asked by the Director General of the Centre national de la cinématographie (French national film centre - CNC), to draw up proposals for improving the exposure of French programmes on foreign screens. He raised a number of possibilities, including developing the offer of programmes, strengthening companies, and improving the arrangements for public support. The...

On 13 September 2005 the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (French audiovisual regulatory body - CSA) authorised four experiments in mobile television in the Paris area for periods of between six and nine months. Under this scheme, four consortiums, coordinated by TDF, TPS, Canal Plus, and TF1 and VDL, have been authorised to broadcast radio and television programmes already covered by agreements with the CSA. All new programmes must first be approved by the regulatory authority, which will also take a quarterly look at progress in the experiments. The technologies used - DVB-H and T-DMB - will...

On 22 March 2005 the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (French audiovisual regulatory body - CSA) sent all the radio and television services a recommendation on the referendum of 29 May 2005 in which it invited them to ensure that the political parties or groupings enjoyed equitable presentation and access to the airwaves (see IRIS 2005-5: 13). A number of political personalities claimed that there should be equal treatment for those in favour and those against, and a number of media representatives contested the rules concerning access to the airwaves. The CSA, which is responsible for ensuring...