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Decisions on copyright protection for the format of a television programme are sufficiently rare so as to warrant reporting the recent decision handed down by the regional court (tribunal de grande instance - TGI) of Paris. In the case at issue, the business manager of an audiovisual production company described himself as the creator of the ‘Teum-Teum’ audiovisual concept. This consists of filming, in a flat located in “sensitive” area, a magazine programme during which a presenter hosts a guest celebrity from the world of culture, show business, or politics for a discussion on their respective...

In May 2015, further to the Costeja decision delivered on 13 May 2014, the Chair of the National IT and Freedom Commission (Commission Nationale Informatique et des Libertés - CNIL) ordered Google Inc. to carry out dereferencing on all the extensions of Google Search within a period of fifteen days. As this was not done within the given time, the Chair of the CNIL instituted sanction proceedings. The authority’s restricted formation found that the 1978 Information Technology and Freedoms Act was applicable to all processing connected with the Google Search service, as had the Court of Justice of...

Bouygues Telecom made a referral to the Conseil d’État on an issue concerning the non-payment of the allowances claimed by the IAP in return for the assistance provided to HADOPI in seeking out Internet users engaging in illegal downloading. Starting in September 2010, HADOPI’s Commission for the Protection of Rights (Commission de Protection des Droits) had called on the electronic communication operators for assistance in seeking out, noting, and prosecuting failures to fulfil the obligation set forth in Article L. 336-3 of the intellectual property code (Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle). In...

Last December, the Conseil d'Etat made a referral to the Constitutional Council for a preliminary ruling on the constitutionality of the guarantee of the rights and freedoms contained in the second paragraph of Article 34-2 of the Act of 30 September 1986. This provision requires cable operators and Internet access providers (IAPs) using the landline network to carry local public television services (local programmes on general channels, cable channels showing local news, and local channels) for their subscribers. There is a second side to this obligation: the cable operators and IAPs are also...

On 29 February, Jean-François Mary, Chairman of the Film Classification Board, submitted a report to the new Minister for Culture, Audrey Azoulay, on the classification of cinematographic works with reference to minors between the ages of 16 and 18 years. The report had been commissioned in September 2015, following the controversy over the courts’ suspension of the classification licence for films including scenes of non-simulated sex, such as ‘Love’ and ‘La Vie d’Adèle’ (see IRIS 2015‑8/15, IRIS 2015-10/13 and IRIS 2016-1/10). More recently, the suspension by the administrative court in Paris...