French customers of DVD movies are not entitled to make personal copies of their DVDs after France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation in Paris ruled against a lower court decision  that prohibited the use of DVD copy protection measures.  According to the layer, when one buys a DVD, they are just buying the right to use that one DVD. This judgement comes as French lawmakers, music labels, movie publishers and lobbists aim to make a balance between copyright protection and consumer rights and is also expected to affect the laws regulating the music industry. 

Back in April 2004, the Paris Court of Appeal prohibited the use of DVD based copy protection systems after a member of the UFC Que Choisir consumer association had argued that the Vivendi's Studio Canal film-protection did not have the right to put measures on their DVDs to stop copying.  Until now, this meant that movie and record labels would have been more likely to face legal action if they used DRM, such as when Warner was fined for using DRM measures on their audio CDs.  Now, it looks like it is victory once again for the movie companies and potentially the music labels also.  

PARIS French consumers are not entitled to make personal copies of DVDs, even if they do not distribute them, France's highest court said Wednesday in a victory for film companies like Vivendi Universal.

The Cour de Cassation in Paris, quashing a decision by a lower court, ruled that a consumer could not 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 did not have the right to use a device that made it impossible to burn duplicate digital video discs.

This high court ruling is obvious bad news for consumers and potentially companies that sells products in France that circumvents anti-copy measures on DVDs.  For example, this ruling effectively means that French consumers are also not entitled to copy their DVD’s contents to portable media players.  As this ruling could potentially affect laws relating other forms of media such as music, it could also result in legal issues doing something as simple as copying the contents of a CD to an iPod or any other portable audio player for personal use. 


Source : International Herald Tribune

Well This could be interesting, wonder how much money they threw around to get that little gift. Lets hope the people are able to get this thrown out before more countries cave into the big companys. I think Australia is starting to go the other way I believe you reported a while back, or at least I saw it somewhere.

(in reply to SiliconFreak)

LOL... now france get's to pay the extra charge for the blank media, to compensate the artists, and it can't copy them....

(in reply to Dartman)