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In May 2002, the European Commission formally asked France to lift its ban on television advertising by the press, the distribution networks and the cinema and publishing sectors introduced by the Decree of 27 March 1992 (see IRIS 2002-6: 13). The Community authorities felt that these regulations, which France held were necessary to preserve the diversity of the press and culture and to protect small shops, restricted the free circulation of services within the Union. In a Decree of 7 October 2003, the French public authorities decided to authorise television advertising for the press, from 1 January...

On 1 July the French Constitutional Council validated all the provisions of the law on electronic communications and audiovisual communication services with no reservations on their interpretation (see IRIS 2004-3: 8). The text transposes into French national law the six Community Directives of the "Telecoms Package". In addition to many changes made to the Post and Telecommunications Code, which is now to be called the "Post and Electronic Communications Code", the law largely amends the Act of 30 September 1986 on audiovisual communication. The missions of the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel...

The ownership of audiovisual rights for sports events and competitions is regulated in France by Article 181 of the Act of 16 July 1984 as amended by the Act of 1 August 2003, according to which "The federations [...] and the organisers [...] own the right to exploit the sports events or competitions they organise." The Decree of 15 July 2004 has now laid down the procedure for the professional leagues to commercialise their audiovisual rights. The text gives them exclusive rights for the commercialisation of all the rights for audiovisual exploitation and broadcasting, either live or recorded...

Last December, when his Ministry's budget was adopted, the Minister for Communications announced that a working party was to be set up to look into redefining the methods for establishing and collecting this fee, which is the main source of financing for public-sector audiovisual services (see IRIS 2003-7: 8). The aim is to improve on its yield, increasing the EUR 2 billion it produces and combating fraud. On 25 July, the Government adopted the principle of combining collection of the television licence fee with that of the housing tax, starting next year. Housing does indeed correlate to some...

On 4 June the Court of Appeal found Claude Zidi, co-author of the screenplay of the film "La Totale", and James Cameron, author of its American adaptation "True Lies", guilty of infringing copyright. The original proceedings had been brought on the grounds of infringement of copyright by Lucien Lambert, author of a scenario entitled "Émilie", completed in 1981, which was adapted for the theatre then translated and published in an American version, who noted a number of similarities between the screenplays of the films in question and his own scenario. In the initial proceedings, the Court had...