I/Persistence of the great principles of the current
legislation to frame the protection of the intellectual property on
Internet
A.
The author's copyright and artistic or royalty and right neighbors
Historically, the royalty was conceived like a flexible
matter, and knew to absorb the advent of photography, the cinema, the radio,
then satellites. One can thus hope that it will be able to face the
generalization of new communication and information technologies, and in
particular of Internet.
In France, the royalties and right close (i.e. rights of the
artists interpreters and producers of videograms and sound records), also
called right of the author's copyright and artistic, are governed by the law of
March 11, 1957, like that of July 3, 1985 and are integrated in the code of the
intellectual property, thanks to the law of July first, 1992. We will endeavor
to highlight, in this part, the specificity of the French right, who, contrary
to the Anglo-Saxon right, recognizes with the author a moral right on his
work.
We will examine, initially, which are the works protected by
the royalty on Internet. Then, in such a context, we will detail the two large
components of this right : patrimonial and right right moral. Lastly,
we will see which are the recourse possible vis-a-vis the infringements.
1)
The works protected on Internet
Under the terms of the L112-1 article of the Code of the
intellectual property, the royalties apply to any work of the spirit, whatever
are the kind, the form of expression, the merit or the destination.
Consequently, all the data or information which one meets on Internet are not
protected by the royalty, but the field of application of the author's
copyright and artistic very broad residence, because it includes/understands
all works of the spirit in original matter, i.e. impressed personality of their
author.
Thus, texts, of any nature, diffused on the network (extracted
from literary or scientific works, journalistic articles, public speeches...)
are protected by the royalty. In the same way for the fixed or animated images
(photographs, reproductions of works of art, synthesized images...), for the
music (but the sounds as such are not protected), and for any audio-visual
work, i.e. any work made up of an animated sequence of images wired for sound
or not.
The Multi-media one is a category of work, recently appeared,
which profits from the royalty and of which one of the definitions is in the
Théry report/ratio of 1994 on the highways of information:
« The multi-media one is a whole of interactive services using the
only numerical support, for the treatment and the transmission of information
in all its forms : texts, data, sounds, images. ». Thus the
category of work multi-media integrates the interactive CD-ROMS, but also the
Web sites on Internet. Generally, multi-media work is a composite work, within
the meaning of the Code, i.e. an original work in which a preexistent work was
built-in without the collaboration of the author of the latter. The legal
status of composite work establishes that it is the property of the author who
carried it out, subject to the royalties of preexistent work.
The software was included in the category of the works
protected by the royalty thanks to the law of July 3, 1985. Moreover, in 1994,
the legislator transposed the European directive from May 14, 1991 relating to
the legal protection of the computer programs, and which makes it possible to
protect not only the software, but also preliminary works of design leading to
the development of the program. Moreover, in order to fight against the
plundering of data-processing works, the Code lays out that any reproduction
other than the backup copy established by the user, as any use of a software
without authorization express of the author is rigorously illicit.
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