France quashes DRM ruling
p2p news / p2pnet: Last spring France’s Paris Court of Appeals ruled DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) software is incompatible with a person’s right to make copies for his/her private use and Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal had one month to strip copy-protection gear – also known as CRAP (Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection ) – from their DVDs.
In addition, Alain Sarde and Universal Pictures Video France were ordered to financially recompense a man who’d copied David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, and French consumer rights association UFC-Que Choisir, who’d defended him.
But now, "French consumers aren’t entitled to make personal copies of DVDs, even if they don’t distribute them, France’s highest court said today in a victory for film companies such as Vivendi Universal SA," states Bloomberg News.
"The Cour de Cassation in Paris, quashing a decision by a lower court, ruled that a consumer can’t make a backup copy of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. The purchaser, a member of the UFC Que Choisir consumer association, had argued that Vivendi’s Studio Canal film-production unit didn’t have the right to use a device that made it impossible to burn duplicate digital video discs."
In January, "Dominique de Villepin’s government toned down a bill aimed at transposing a 2001 European Union directive on intellectual rights into French law, after consumer groups balked at articles that made file-sharing akin to counterfeiting, punishable by prison sentences of as long as three years and fines of as much as 300,000 euros ($358,000)," says Bloomberg, adding:
"The right to make personal copies can be restricted by copyright holders when duplication ‘could cause an unjustified damage to the legitimate interests of authors,’ today’s judgment said."
Also See:
copy-protection gear – French court bans DRM, April 25, 2005
CRAP – DRM – a load of CRAP, February 25, 2006
Bloomberg News – France’s Highest Court Boosts Copyright Protection on Film DVDs, March 1, 2006
March 3rd, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Thi story illustrates how laws are not understandable.
A citizen does an act and a court says it is ok.
Then another court contradicts the judge.
The question: How was the citizen to know at the beginning how to interpret the law?
Now the next citizen, to interpret the law must read the jurisprudence of the two courts! And as jurisprudence builds, so does the confusion grow.
This is why a downlowader or copier of a CD can never know if the use of what he/she is sold is legal and wether he/she may be a criminal doing jail time.
Yes…
Bastards designed the legal system. While the people twiddle and suck their thumbs. In France and elsewhere.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
March 4th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
This story has been widely misreported as indicating that the French court banned DVD copying. Not at all – they merely backed off from the position that the DVD suppliers are obligated to make copying possible.