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The Regional Court in Paris has, for the first time to our knowledge, spoken out on the balancing of the right to making a private copy and the right to use technical means of protecting works. In the present case, a consumer, backed by a national consumer group (Union Fédérale des Consommateurs ­ UFC), complained that he had not been able to make a copy of the DVD of the film "Mulholland Drive" because the digital medium included technical protective devices which were not mentioned at all on the box. In support of their case, the applicants claimed that this constituted an infringement of the...

Article 1 of the Act on confidence in the digital economy, adopted by the Senate at its second reading on 8 April and examined by the Joint Committee on 27 April, creates a separate legal scheme applicable to Internet (see IRIS 2004-3: 8). The text lays down a number of definitions that establish Internet's place in French law relating to audiovisual communication. More particularly, the Act creates the notion of "communication to the public by electronic means", which refers to the making of signs, signals, documents, images, sounds or messages of any kind that do not have the characteristic features...

Decree No. 2001-1332 of 28 December 2001 lays down the way in which editors of television services broadcast in analog mode by terrestrially-broadcast means, which are funded by payment received from users, are to contribute to the development of the production of cinematographic and audiovisual works. In the context of the relationship between Canal+ and the French cinema, there has been discussion for several months on the renewal of the partnership by adapting it to recent developments in the sector and to the strategic prospects of the channel. The aim was more particularly to confirm Canal+...

On 26 April the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory authority­ CSA) and the Haut Conseil à l'intégration (council for integration­ HCI) organised a special day entitled "Pale screens?" devoted to considering the representation on television of the diversity of the origins and cultures that make up the national community. Dominique Baudis, Chairman of the CSA, took the opportunity to reaffirm his determination to act in favour of better representativeness of French diversity on television. Mr Baudis said that, although the channels had reflected diversity better over the...

On 21 April 2004, the European Commission announced its decision to refer to the European Court of Justice the six Member States that had still not fully implemented the new regulatory framework for electronic communications into their national law (i.e. Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). The new framework was to be implemented by July 2003, but 8 Member States failed to meet this deadline and in October 2003 the Commission opened infringement proceedings against those States (see IRIS 2003-10: 5 and IRIS 2004-2: 4). Proceedings against two Member States, Spain (see...