Copyright: Société Studio canal SA and another v M. Stéphane X and another

The Cour de Cassation (the highest court of France) has held that technical measures that prevent a user from making a copy of a DVD for his personal use is not unlawful. The Court allowed an appeal from the Paris court of appeal that had held that any inhibition of the right to enjoy the personal use exception as permitted by art 5 (2) of the Copyright and Related Rights Directive and indeed art 9 of the Berne Convention was unlawful.

Since French judgments contain none of the detailed reasoning of Anglo-Saxon or for that matter ECJ decisions I surmise that the court held that an exception does not give rise to a right. I shall be interested in Sulliman's insight on this point if he reads this post.

The Court remanded the case to the court below for further consideration.

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