High Court of First Instance of Paris (31st Chamber), 3 September 2009, SCPP c/ J.-L. and B. T., www.legalis.net
The High Court of First Instance of Paris has condemned the music website Radioblof.fr for putting at the disposal of the public, on its site, links to recordings, and for permitting its visitors to export the play lists that they had created.
The Court considered that the owners of the site had, by so doing, infringed on the rights of the record producers, and that they had illegally published illegally software manifestly aimed at putting unauthorised protected works at the disposal of the public (Section L.335-2-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code).
The Court sentenced the two owners of the site to pay a fine of ten thousand Euros, with a one year suspended prison sentence.
The damages were calculated on the grounds of the new Section L.331-1-3 of the French Intellectual Property Code, which provides that “In order to set the damages, the Court takes into account the negative economic consequences, including the earnings of the author of the infringement and the moral prejudice caused to the rightholders” (L. n° 2007-1544, 29 October 2007: OJ 30 October 2007, which implements the Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights). The site attracted 800.000 visits daily, which generated a turnover of €403.286 in 2006, and a 686.469 in 2007 through advertising. The Court condemned the owners of the site to refund these sums to the rightholders, i.e. 1.089.755 Euros.
BRAD SPITZ
www.bradspitz.com
IPIT NEWS FROM FRANCE, by YS Avocats law firm, www.ys-avocats.com
