“The Supreme Court puts an end to a French oddity and makes the business of music synchronisation safer. (…) The Supreme Court took the opportunity to settle two major issues in French neighbouring rights: (1) a collective management organisation may only take action for the defence of its own members; (2) the collective agreements entered into before the Act of 3 July 1985 granting neighbouring rights to performers, are still in force.”
The Franco-Belgian movie Podium, released in 2004, tells the story of a Claude François lookalike who prepares for a contest. Claude François, AKA ‘Cloclo’, was a famous French pop singer of the 60s and 70s. In order to use recordings from the 60s an [...]
“This agreement covers all types of videos broadcasted by YouTube.”
The French collecting society SACEM, which manages the rights of authors and publishers of musical works, announced, on 3 April 2013, that it has entered into a new agreement with YouTube and Universal Music Publishing International (UMPI). This agreement defines the conditions of use of SACEM’s repertoire and UMPI’s Anglo-American repertoire in videos broadcasted by YouTube in 127 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The deal, however, does not include the United States. This agreement, which commences on 1 January 2013, covers all types of videos broadcasted by YouTube, including user-generated c [...]
“In the absence of any claim from the phonogram producer, or its assigns, the natural or legal person who publicly, peacefully and unambiguously exploits recordings, is deemed to be the holder of the rights in the recordings as regards third parties against whom an infringement case is brought.”
The French Intellectual Property Code deals with copyright and neighbouring rights separately. As regards copyright, the French case law has long established a presumption of ownership to facilitate infringement proceedings initiated by natural or legal persons who exploit copyrighted works against alleged infringers.
On the grounds of article L.113-5 of the Intellectual Property Code, which provides [...]
The usefulness of a computer program is not sufficient to characterise the originality of the program.
There is nothing more subjective, and often arbitrary and unfair, than the notion on which copyright protection is based: originality. Under French law, the Intellectual Property Code protects “the rights of authors in all works of the mind, whatever their kind, form of expression, merit or purpose” (article L.112-1), without giving a definition of originality. French case law has defined originality as the expression of the personality of the author. European case law validated the French conception of originality, in particular in Infopaq and in Painer (para. 88: “As stated in recita [...]
The French Supreme Court (“Cour de Cassation”) has upheld, in a ruling of 25 September 2012, a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Paris condemning Radioblog and its managing directors to the payment of damages amounting to over €1 million, in addition to a suspended prison sentence of nine months and a €10,000 fine.
The case is interesting for two reasons: the gigantic amount of damages and the application, for the first time, of new provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code condemning the provision of software applications intended to be used for infringing copyright.
The facts are the following: the website Radioblog provided a software called ‘RadioBlogClub’ to Internet user [...]
“The ECJ does not go as far as the Advocate General, and observes that given the ubiquitous nature of the content of a website, the mere fact that the website is accessible in a national territory is not sufficient to consider that the operator of that site is performing an act of re-utilisation caught by the national law.”
On 18 October 2012, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rendered its judgment in Football Dataco II (C-173/11), in which it ruled that data is re-utilised in a Member State, the meaning of Article 7 of the Directive 96/9, if there is evidence that the alleged infringer intended to target members of the public in that territory.
The Court of Appeal of England and Wale [...]
