REPORT ON A PAINTING EXHIBITION

Court of Cassation
Civil Chamber 1

Appeal number: 01-14385
Published in the bulletin
President: M. LEMONTEY
FRENCH REPUBLIC

IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE

IN THE NAME OF THE FRENCH PEOPLE

THE COURT OF CASSATION, FIRST CIVIL CHAMBER, delivered the following judgment:

Notifies the national television company France 2 of the withdrawal of its appeal in that it is directed against the company of Authors in the graphic and plastic arts (ADAGP);

On the first plea, taken in its four branches, as set out in the brief in demand and reproduced in the appendix:

Whereas, within a report devoted to an exhibition of paintings by Maurice Utrillo organized in Lodève and broadcast during a television news for two minutes and a few seconds, the national television company France 2 (the company France 2) showed, between images representing the city or the painter and various comments on both, twelve canvases by the artist; that Mr X …, having right of the latter, assigned the society France 2 in infringement and damages;

Whereas, in order to accommodate this request and to rule out the plea based on the right of short quotation invoked by the company France 2, the court of appeal (Paris, May 30, 2001), on the one hand, exactly stated that full representation of a work, whatever its form or duration, cannot fall under the exercise of this right; that it, on the other hand, sovereignly noted that the presentation of the Maurice Utrillo exhibition in Lodève, proper object and final subtitle of the contested sequence, could be carried out without fully reproducing on the screen twelve paintings by the artist, pointing out that these successive appearances were deliberate, thus excluding that they could be regarded as simply incidental to the subject treated; from where it follows that the decision is legally justified with regard to articles L. 122-4 and L. 122-5 of the Code of the intellectual property;

On the second plea, taken in its four branches, similarly stated and reproduced:

Whereas the Court of Appeal held, on the one hand, that the fact for the company France 2 to have broadcast in the past masterpieces, including Maurice Utrillo, without seeking an agreement or settling any remuneration , is insufficient to constitute a use of which it could avail itself, and, on the other hand, that the scales of the Spadem excluding the collection of rights in the event of use by a television newscast of works of art in connection with a news directly concerning them themselves or their authors did not require an exemption from authorization by them; that it thus legally justified its decision;

And on the third plea, taken in its four branches, similarly stated and reproduced:

Whereas in order to reject the complaint of infringement of the public’s right to information and culture, the judgment rightly states that the author’s legal monopoly over his work is an intangible property, guaranteed under the right of any natural or legal person to respect for their property, and to which the legislator places proportionate limits, both by the exceptions listed in Article L. 122-5 of the Intellectual Property Code and by notorious abuse provided for in Article L. 122-9 of the same Code; that he, moreover, noted that the company France 2 had the possibility of informing the televiewers of the existence of the exhibition without it being essential for him to represent works of the painter under the conditions criticized, as well as the ability to research authorization from MX … to proceed; that the plea alleging violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is thus found to be ineffective;