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On 18 April 2000 the Court of Cassation rejected the appeal lodged by France Télécom in the dispute between the "incumbent operator" and the cable television networks operator Numéricâble. The company is a concessionaire of local authorities and broadcasts audiovisual services on a cable network owned by France Télécom. The incumbent operator notified the company of a substantial increase in the cost of access to its network for the transport of audiovisual signals by cable at the time of renewing current contracts. Invoking the serious worsening of the financial straits that would result from...

The Internet host Altern.org has again been sanctioned by the courts, this time - following the Estelle Hallyday case (see IRIS 1999-3: 3), in which it was found that access providers were liable for the circulation of unlawful content - for counterfeiting a brand-name and infringement of copyright. In the present case, there was a site devoted to sadomasochism at Altern.org under the domain name of calimero.org. The site's home-page contained the heading la page francophone de Caliméro ("Caliméro's page in French") and in the centre of the screen an exact reproduction of the character in the Caliméro...

Following on from the Court of Appeal in Versailles last November (see IRIS 2000-1: 13), the Court of Appeal in Paris has recently pronounced in its turn on the legal status of a multimedia work, in this case a number of CD-ROMs on painting and literature. The dispute was between a company that edits CD-ROMs (Havas Interactive) and the designer and producer of seven CD-ROMs edited by the company (Mr Casaril). According to the contracts concluded by the parties, only the editing company held copyright. The producer was classified as an "independent service provider" and received a lump-sum remuneration...

The reaction of editors of the electronic press to the multiple reproductions of their articles with a view to their circulation on company intranets or on Internet sites has not been long in coming. In the hope of putting an end to the pillage of their content, Les Echos, L'Agefi, Investir, Libération, Le Monde, La Tribune and ZDNet have recently signed an Electronic Publishing Charter intended to guarantee the rights of Internet users, editors and authors. In its preamble, the editors point out that on-line information is subject to the same statutory rules as conventional publishing. They undertake...

A recent decision by the Court of Appeal in Rennes confirms that the Internet is merely another vector of information subject to common law. The decision also helps to refine the definition and the limits of advertising on websites. In the case in question, a bank offered credit solutions on its site that were accompanied by examples of financing and a page of advertising for a credit card. A consumer association had the existence of these pages noted officially by a bailiff and called on the district court in Rennes to order their immediate removal on the grounds of violation of the Consumer Code....