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Canal France International (CFI) is a French television channel whose object is to spread French culture and the image of France abroad. Its programmes are broadcast in the countries of North Africa and the Near and France Télécom between the CFI control Middle East via the ARABSAT II satellite using a link provided by centre in Paris and the satellite. On 19 July 1997, following a technical incident, the link between Paris and the CTS (satellite transmission centre) which broadcasts to ARABSAT II was interrupted and the France Télécom operator set up an alternative circuit to make it possible...

The Court of Appeal in Paris delivered an interesting decision on 24 September 1997 on musical pirating on television. The public-sector channel France 2 had used extracts from three musical works by the group Daft Punk to provide a musical background to the presentation of its programmes. The co-authors of the pirated songs and their beneficiaries, considering that such broadcasting constituted a serious infringement of their copyright protection, took the dispute to the courts under the urgent procedure, but their demand for such broadcasting to cease was thrown out. They appealed against the...

Case-law concerning the Internet is gradually taking shape. The order delivered in an urgent matter by the Commercial Chamber of the Regional Court (Tribunal de grande instance - TGI) of Strasbourg is a further demonstration that it is a mistake to think that Internet is a law unto itself. The decision is all the more interesting in that this is the first time in France that it has been judged that a newspaper does not have the right to use articles written by journalists subsequently on Internet without first obtaining their consent; the same holds for television broadcasts. The computer company...

In a resolution of 8 July 1997, the National Commission for Data Protection (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés - CNIL) set out the guarantees that publishers of on-line directories should provide for subscribers. The formalities to be fulfilled before setting up the automated processing of nominative information are contained in the provisions of the law of 6 January 1978, relating to data processing, data files and to individual rights. The law also covers processing of data for producing lists of users or subscribers to network and telecommunications services. Any such...

There are over 1500 private radios in France using terrestrial frequencies, in compliance with the law. However, it has needed some 17 years to bring calm to the wavelengths. Back in the early 80's, the so-called "free" radios hijacked the FM waveband and successive regulatory bodies experienced great difficulty in bringing them to book, in other words making sure that a frequency could only be used with the authorisation of what is now the Audiovisual Supervisory Board ( Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel - CSA) . The CSA has recently found itself up against the problem of private radios (often...