French copyright law allows people to copy a work for private
purposes; UK copyright law does not.
French music industry association, the Société Civile des
Producteurs Phonographiques (SCPP), sued the man, known as Anthony
G, after investigations revealed that he had 1,875 MP3 (music) and
DIVX (video) files on his computer hard drive.
His case was taken up by a pro-file-sharing campaign group, the
Association of Audionautes (ADA), which persuaded the Tribunal de
Grande Instance de Paris that both uploading and downloading are
covered by the ‘private copying’ defence. Previous rulings had
concerned only the downloading of copyrighted files.
According to Jean-Baptiste Soufron, Legal Counsel of the ADA,
the decision “is an important stepping stone in our fight to
legalise P2P."
The SCPP has appealed the decision, which was published just
before the French Parliament debates whether to impose a surcharge
of around €5 a month on the use of P2P networks. Under the
proposal, any monies raised would be used to compensate rights
holders. French law applies a similar surcharge on sales of blank
media, such as cassettes and CDs.
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