(via Ernie Miller): Private Copying and DRM and the French Decision

A few weeks ago the blogs were a-gog with news that a French Court of Appeals had held that DRM on DVDs was illegal insofar as it interfered with the right of French citizens to make private copies. Constitutional Code was one of the blogs that mentioned the issue. Patently-O summarises the case thus:

'Mr. P purchased a DVD of “Mulholland Drive” wanted to play it at his mother’s house. Unfortunately, his mother only owned a VHS player. Because of anti-piracy software on the DVD, Mr. P was unable to transfer the video to the VHS format. He brought his case to the French consumer union (UFC) who then brought suit against Universal Pictures and Studio Canal. UFC’s complaint relied upon the French Intellectual Property Code that guarantees the rights of consumers “to make a private copy” (Article L.122–5) and obligates vendors to inform consumers of essential characteristics of goods (Article L.111–1).
The Appellate Court agreed that Mr. P’s rights had been violated, finding that the anti-privacy locking mechanism was a breach of the exception for private copy and that Universal had failed to provide sufficient information about the mechanism, which is an essential characteristic of the product.'

Now, Ernie Miller reports that Patently-O has a translation of the French decision (pdf). It has some interesting comments about personal copying, and the Berne 3 step test. But I particularly like this paragraph, which highlights the fact that the complaining consumer had paid the mark-up on the blank DVD to compensate copyright owners for private copying, and then couldn't copy:

'Whereas the damage suffered by Mr P. occurs entirely at the same time from the marked up price of the blank cassette purchased, in consequence of the amount of royalty owed for private copy, and from the loss of joy that he suffered because he was not able to process a private copy; that with allowance made for the product ingredients, the court estimates that the sum of 100 euros will exactly compensate for this.'