{"id":134,"date":"2006-03-03T04:06:08","date_gmt":"2006-03-03T08:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/2006\/03\/03\/french-supreme-court-uphelds-legality"},"modified":"2006-12-10T05:39:26","modified_gmt":"2006-12-10T09:39:26","slug":"french-supreme-court-uphelds-legality-of-drm-on-dvd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/2006\/03\/03\/french-supreme-court-uphelds-legality-of-drm-on-dvd\/","title":{"rendered":"French Supreme Court Uphelds Legality of DRM on DVD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name=\"a695\"><\/a>  The French <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courdecassation.fr\/\">Cour de Cassation<\/a> \u2013 the highest court in the French judicial system \u2013 recently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courdecassation.fr\/agenda\/agenda_new\/I-2006-02-28-0515824-0516002-Decision-civ1.htm\">reversed<\/a> a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juriscom.net\/jpt\/visu.php?ID=685\">ruling <\/a>by the Paris Court of Appeals in the landmark case <span style=\"font-style: italic\">UFC v. Films Alain Sadre et al.<\/span> and remanded it, stating that the private copying \u201cright\u201d is not an absolute users\u2019 right and, therefore, that the application of technological protection measures inhibiting the making of copies for private purposes is not illegal under French law.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=655391\">Recall <\/a>that UFC, a consumer rights association, filed a lawsuit claiming that a copy protection system on a DVD (here: DVD Mulholland Drive) is in conflict with the provisions of the French Intellectual Property Code, which limit copyright owners\u2019 rights regarding reproductions strictly made for the copier\u2019s private use. The District Court disagreed and confirmed that such technological protection measures comply with the EUCD and French legislation. The Paris Court of Appeals, in contrast, held \u2013 as reported <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/2005\/04\/24#a69\">here<\/a> \u2013 that the DRM system in this particular case was illegeal and that the failure on the part of the producers and distributor of the DVD to inform consumers of the presence of DRM upon the DVD violated French consumer protection law.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Versailles Appeals Court rendered a judgment upholding the legality of technological protection measures on a CD from the French singer Alain Souchon, and \u2013 only a few weeks prior to the Cour de Cassation&#8217;s judgment &#8211; the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris (District Court) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.juriscom.net\/jpt\/visu.php?ID=784\">blocked<\/a> the application of anti-copying technology on Warner Music\u2019s \u201cTestify\u201d CD from Phil Collins (more <a href=\"http:\/\/soufron.typhon.net\/article.php3?id_article=125\">here<\/a>). Against this backdrop, it is interesting to observe how things will develop \u2013 not only on the copyright front, but also with regard to the consumer protection argument. For a detailed discussion pre-Feb 28th, see Natali Helberger&#8217;s analyses on INDICARE (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.indicare.org\/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=181\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indicare.org\/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=180\">2<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indicare.org\/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=76\">3<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/indicare.berlecon.de\/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=48\">4<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The French Cour de Cassation \u2013 the highest court in the French judicial system \u2013 recently reversed a ruling by the Paris Court of Appeals in the landmark case UFC v. Films Alain Sadre et al. and remanded it, stating that the private copying \u201cright\u201d is not an absolute users\u2019 right and, therefore, that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,877,1163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright","category-drm","category-tpm"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ugasser\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}