ECtHR (5th section), 10 January 2013, case of Ashby Donald and others v. France, Appl. nr. 36769/08. By Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University and Inger Høedt-Rasmussen, Copenhagen Business School. “Although the European Court did not find a violation of Article 10 in the case of Ashby Donald and others v. France, the judgment in this case…
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…
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….
“According to the current formulation of the draft law, material quoted by humans for commentary and analysis, as opposed to that automatically selected by a computer, may be copied freely.” The link wars have once again broken out in Europe. In August, the German cabinet gave its backing to a draft law allowing news publishers…
On 13 September 2012, three months after the first ruling in a case opposing the French TV channel, TF1, to YouTube, the Paris Court of First Instance (Tribunal de Grande Instance) issued a second judgment in a case opposing the same TV channel to Dailymotion. The facts of the two cases are quite similar but…
‘According to the Supreme Court, through its service of Google Suggest, Google had not infringed any copyright but had provided the means to infringe copyright.’ In 2010 Google was sued by the French recording industry trade association (SNEP) for copyright and neighbouring right infringements via its service Google Suggest. The Court of First Instance and…
Lower courts have shifted from a notice and take down rule (provided by the e-commerce Directive and the LCEN) to a notice and stay down rule (created by the judges). This interpretation was confirmed in 2011 by the Paris Court of Appeal. However, on 12 July 2012, the Court of Cassation put an end to…
“No obligation of monitoring subsequent publications is inscribed in the law; however French Courts have a tendency to impose such an obligation on hosting providers shifting from a notice and take down rule to a notice and stay down rule.” On 29 May 2012, the Paris Court of First Instance (Tribunal de Grande Instance) issued…
On 5 April 2012, the French Court of Cassation stayed of proceedings in a copyright infringement case opposing a French songwriter to an Austrian CD manufacturer and referred preliminary questions to the CJEU on the interpretation of Article 5 (3) of Regulation 44/2001 (on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and…
Without much noise, France recently adopted Act Nr. 2012-287 of 1st March 2012 relating to the digital exploitation of unavailable books of the 20th century. Contrary to past initiatives from the French lawmaker, the Act does not relate to orphan works, but rather to out-of-commerce works. Or, more precisely: books. According to the explanatory memorandum…
