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In France, the audiovisual sector’s return to work after the summer break was marked by the launch, on 1 September 2016, of the new public-service news channel ‘France Info’, using the name of the new global offer of public news. This is the fourth continuous news channel in France on digital freeview television, after BFM-TV (NextRadioTV group), i-Télé (Canal+ group), and LCI (TF1 group). France Télévisions has recruited 176 people for the project, half of them internally, but there have been social problems, and on 13 September, the regional court in Paris was called on to adjudicate on one of...

In a decision delivered on 10 June 2016, the Court of Appeal in Paris upheld a sentence for plagiarism that hit the headlines when it was delivered in the initial proceedings, and substantially increased the amounts awarded in damages. In the case at issue, an American director claimed that the film ‘Lock-Out’, released in 2012, was very similar to the film ‘Escape from New York’ (French title: ‘New York 1997’), released in 1981, which he had co-written. The French production company of the film ‘Lock-Out’ and the film’s writers were summoned to appear in court to answer charges of plagiarism....

The Act on the Freedom of Creation, Architecture, and Heritage was published in the Journal Officiel on 8 July 2016. The first article of its section on ‘freedom of creation’ refers to the freedom of artistic creation and its circulation, which is to be exercised “with due regard for the principles governing freedom of expression and in accordance with the first section of the Intellectual Property Code”. Infringement of this right is to attract criminal punishment: “Hampering, in a concerted fashion and under threat, exercise of the freedom of artistic creation or the freedom to circulate artistic...

On 25 February 2016, the regional court in Paris delivered an unusual but noteworthy decision on the delicate matter of the conflict between copyright protection and creative freedom. In the case at issue, the publishing house which holds the rights for the representation, reproduction, and audiovisual adaptation of the work of surrealist poet Paul Eluard, including more particularly his famous poem entitled ‘Liberté’, and the poet’s daughter instigated proceedings on the grounds of infringement of copyright against the producer and distributor of a film directed by David Cronenberg. The case was...

In two decisions delivered on 13 July 2016, the Conseil d’Etat (France’s highest administrative tribunal) rejected the appeals brought against decisions made by the national audiovisual regulatory authority (Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel - CSA) in December 2015. The decisions authorised the channel LCI to switch to freeview DTTV and refused the request from Paris Première to do so. Article 42-3 of the Act of 30 September 1986, amended by the Act of 15 November 2013, allows the CSA the possibility, under certain conditions, of authorising a pay DTTV channel to switch to freeview, waiving the...