Key Benefits:
THE LAW OF OTHERS AND VOISINS RIGHTS
IN THE COMPLIANCE OF INFORMATION
Mr President of the Constitutional Council, ladies and gentlemen members of the Constitutional Council, we have the honour to refer to you, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 61 of the Constitution, the law on copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society.
The appellants consider it necessary to raise the question of the constitutionality of the entire bill referred to.
Considering the fundamental principles, often of equal constitutional value, which embraces the issue of intellectual property, legislative work must be exemplary, both upstream and downstream. Except to reducing culture to a simple merchant product, no law has made the choice to penalize access to culture. It's not our tradition or our history.
Since 1957, Government and legislator, guided by reasons of general interest, have always been able to succeed in the consensual adaptation of our intellectual property right in order to ensure that the modernization of modes of diffusion and reproduction is not at the expense of cultural creation and its diffusion. Each time, parliamentary debates have created a balance between interests opposing all market actors: the authors, the economic intermediaries that produce and disseminate works, the public. Who recalls that the law of 11 March 1957 was passed after thirteen years of in-depth studies by a specialized commission? Who can deny that the law of July 3, 1985 as of January 3, 1995 is the result of a real government work passed to the sieve of a thorough parliamentary procedure, excluding the use of the emergency?
However, the Government chose to do otherwise, denying complexity by taking refuge behind the argument of the necessary transposition of a European directive.
The result is an intelligible text, breaking the equality of the citizens before the law while you have found, still recently, that "equality before the law set out in Article 6 of the Declaration of 1789 and "the guarantee of the rights required by Article 16 would not be effective if the citizens did not have sufficient knowledge of the rules that are applicable to them and if these rules were excessively complex in terms of
Yet, you have never accepted that the advent of the information society justifies in itself the abandonment of constitutionally guaranteed principles. You have refused "a specific regime of criminal responsibility of "homeowners distinct from that applicable to the authors and publishers of messages" not respecting "the principle of the legality of offences and penalties and the provisions of Article 34 of the Constitution under which: "The law sets the rules concerning: ... the determination of crimes and offences and the penalties that apply to them..." (Decision 2000-433 DC of 27 July 2000). You have demanded that "the possibility of holding hearings in special rooms or through audio-visual means ... ensure sufficient fair and fair trial" (Decision No. 2003-484 DC of 20 November 2003). You considered that "the difference in regime established, in terms of the right of reply and limitation, by the provisions criticized obviously exceeds what would be necessary to take into account the particular situation of messages exclusively available on a computer medium" (Decision No. 2004-496 DC of 10 June 2004). Finally, you refused "a procedure for administrative requisition of technical data of connection" which ignored "the principle of separation of powers" (Decision No. 2005-532 DC of 19 January 2006).
The advent of the information society must not be an alibi to challenge the fundamental freedom enshrined in the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 1789, which wants that "free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most valuable human rights: every citizen can therefore speak, write, print freely, except to respond to the abuse of this freedom in the cases determined by law".
This law, which is measured by constitutional flaws, has, as if not sufficient, been passed in conditions marked by the violation of the principle of sincerity and clarity of the legislative procedure enshrined, in particular, by articles 6 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 1789 and 3 of the 1958 Constitution.
I. - On the legislative procedure
It is clear from the conditions of the parliamentary debate that the principles of clarity, readability and sincerity of parliamentary debates have been ignored as you have formulated them through your jurisprudence.
1. The Government first thought it possible to withdraw section 1 of the bill when it was discussed in the National Assembly.
This withdrawal took place even though amendments to this article had been adopted by the National Assembly and these amendments, establishing the global licence, covered a substantial provision of the text. The Government has therefore created a new path, apart from those provided for in the Constitution and the regulations, allowing it to oppose unintended amendments after their adoption.
Such a practice has a substantial impact on the exercise of the right of amendment of parliamentarians and constitutes a challenge to the decisions of the Assembly. It will be censored by the Constitutional Council.
2. The reintroduction of Article 1 did not purify this irregularity. On the contrary, she aggravated her.
Indeed, on 7 March 2006, the Government filed an amendment No. 272 replacing Article 1. The discussion of this amendment continued after the withdrawal of Article 1 by the Government, in violation of Article 98 (4°) of the National Assembly Regulation, and the sub-amendments to Amendment No. 272 were examined after the reintroduction of Article 1!
The reintroduction of Article 1 by the Government took place outside of any constitutional or regulatory basis.
3. Finally, the discussion of the bill by the joint parity commission has strengthened these serious violations to the principles of parliamentary procedure.
The rapporteurs of the bill presented, at the opening of the Joint Joint Joint Joint Commission on 22 June 2006, 55 new amendments rewriting essential provisions of the draft.
However, you have considered that it appears "from the economy of Article 45 of the Constitution and in particular from its first paragraph under which "any bill or proposal of law is considered successively in the two assemblies of Parliament for the adoption of an identical text that, as the rules of the Assembly and the Senate remind, the additions or amendments that may be made after the first reading by the Government of the Parliament and by the regulations of the Senate, that, however, are not subject to the latter obligation the amendments intended to ensure respect for the Constitution, to coordinate with texts being examined or to correct a material error" (Decision No. 2005-532 DC of 19 January 2006).
By adding, at the last moment, in a joint parity commission, elements that substantially alter the project without the meetings having had the time of analysis and reflection, and even though a second reading was refused by the Government, the assemblies had to rule on provisions of which they did not debate during the first and only reading before the joint parity commission.
The lack of clarity and sincerity of the parliamentary debate has undoubtedly reinvigorated on the substance of the law, leading Parliament to adopt a law whose main provisions are unconstitutional.
II. - On the bottom
1. The guarantees of intelligibility and accessibility of the law, the legality of offences and penalties are unknown.
The Constitutional Council considers it constant that: "It is the duty of the legislator to exercise fully the competence entrusted to it by the Constitution and, in particular, article 34 thereof; In this regard, the principle of clarity of the law, which stems from the same article of the Constitution, and the objective of constitutional value of intelligibility and accessibility of the law, which stems from articles 4, 5, 6 and 16 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 1789, requires it to adopt sufficiently precise provisions and non-equivocal formulas in order to premunite the subjects of the Constitution 5
The Constitutional Council also considers: "that the legislator holds from Article 34 of the Constitution, as well as the principle of the legality of offences and penalties, the obligation to determine the scope of the criminal law itself and to define the crimes and offences in sufficiently clear and precise terms; that this requirement is necessary not only to exclude the arbitrariness in the pronouncement of sentences, but also to avoid a rigour not necessary in the search for 2004
Gold:
1.1. It is necessary for any person wishing to benefit from the exceptions to copyright and related rights to respect for an undetermined and impossible legal obligation: respect for the "three-step test" at the risk of depriving it of this essential faculty of freedom of communication and exposing it by legitimate ignorance to a criminal conviction (art. 1, I, before the last paragraph; art. 2, I, last paragraph; Article 3, I, 2°, of the law).
The exercise of the benefit of the exceptions is subject to an insurmountable trial for any "honest person".
The law even places the most informed in the ignorance of the civil and criminal consequences of their legitimate acts and carried out in good faith.
In fact, the legislator imposes on anyone who invokes a legally prescribed exception to copyright and neighbouring rights to justify that he complies with the three-step test, namely, to demonstrate and justify the absence of a breach of the normal operation of the work and the absence of unjustified prejudice to the legitimate interests of the author.
Each user must know whether he or she remains in legality before enjoying the benefit of the exceptions provided by law. Its legal security, under penalty of criminal sanctions, depends on it.
The law does not put the citizen in a position to comply with the law.
Very simply, counsel will find that it is not permissible for any person to know reasonably whether the technical or economic conditions of the operation of such work in particular, depending on the strategy of the operators, depending on the markets, affect the normal operation of the work and cause unjustified prejudice to the legitimate interests of the author.
The law, by imposing an impossible obligation on its citizens, places the vigilantes in a situation punishable by criminal, fine and imprisonment (art. L. 335-2 et seq. du code de la propriété intellectuelle), par imprévisibility de la loi.
In addition, the imprecision of the law is likely to result in self-restriction behaviours of users obstructing the existence of an information society, which is now a testament to the exercise of freedom of expression and the dissemination of ideas; freedom of information, understood as knowledge for the formation of the minds of the citizens, having been recognized by you as the mother of freedoms; and who can not fail to be consecrated effectively, now in the digital environment.
Censorship will prevent such breaches of fundamental principles and rights, whose continuity and therefore respect are more necessary than ever in the information society.
1.2. Uncertain culprits and accomplices, in mass: the offence of publishing, the provision, the communication to the public of " software manifestly intended for the provision of protected works or objects to the public" (art. 21 of the Act).
Publication, availability or communication, knowingly, such software is punishable by three years imprisonment and 300,000 euros fine. Their accomplices or recelators also, even though the special text does not specify it, are liable to the same penalties (arts. 121-6 and 321-1 et seq. of the Criminal Code).
However, the definition of the offence is clearly unclear, despite a reassuring appearance.
Many of the most useful software and software for the public have the incriminated functionality (message software, news group, instant messaging...). The file exchange feature in question is one of the most essential of the digital network revolution.
The requirement of the " manifest" character of the guilty destination of the software does not result in lifting the unpredictability of the law but in imposing a little skill to circumvent its application.
The imprecision of the law thus presents the risk of double paralysis, that of the essential tools of the digital network society and that of the law - by the impossibility of effective enforcement.
The law therefore does not meet the constitutional requirements of intelligibility and accessibility of the law, resulting from articles 34 of the Constitution and 4, 5, 6 and 16 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 1789, and the principle of the legality of the offences and penalties provided for in article 34.
1.3. Uncertain causes of exoneration: innocent, or guilty, without being able to know (art. 21, last paragraph, of the law).
The provisions of section 21 of the Act are duly imprecise: on the one hand, because of the insufficient definition of the constituent elements of the offence it institutes (supra I, 1.2), and on the other, because of the imprecise limitations of the authorized acts.
Indeed, the offence of publishing, making available, communicating to the public of software manifestly intended for the provision of works or protected objects to the unauthorized public is not constituted when such software is "for collaborative work, research or exchange of files or objects not subject to the remuneration of copyright".
However, this cause of exemption from criminal responsibility is not defined by the legislator. This increases the insecurity resulting from the imprecision of the constituent elements of the offence.
In addition, the public is not in a position to know whether or not the file concerned is subject to copyright compensation, as the legislator has not taken care to provide this essential guarantee to the predictability of the offence by the requirement of public information.
As a citizen is not able to determine whether he or she benefits from exemption and therefore whether or not he commits an offence, it is once again the principle of clarity and the requirement of intelligibility of the law that are in question, in addition to the lack of knowledge of the principle of legality of offences and penalties.
1.4. The lack of a definition of interoperability, yet an exoneration of criminal responsibility (art. 21, last paragraph, of the law).
The notion of interoperability is not defined in the law. It is with concern that Mr.Mr. the rapporteur for the Senate and the president of the CMP, questioning the risk thus created (page 16, § 3-6, of the CMP report).
This lack of law puts into question several constitutional principles and threatens the balance of rights and obligations, both of companies and consumers, as well as the realization of the relevant legislative objectives, thus the very effectiveness of the law.
This deficiency also ignores the principle of the legality of offences and penalties as long as the circumvention of technical protection measures for interoperability can constitute an exempt cause of criminal responsibility (art. 22, 8th paragraph, art. 22, last paragraph, art. 23, 8th paragraph, art. 23, last paragraph).
The pre-existence of the notion of interoperability in the intellectual property code, as long as it is not defined, cannot cover the ignorance of the aforementioned constitutional requirements and principles.
2. The beneficiaries of interoperability are deprived of a right to an effective remedy to ensure that they are rights holders or consumers (art. 14, 3rd paragraph, of the law).
According to the same terms of the Constitutional Council: "under Article 16 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights: "A society in which the guarantee of rights is not guaranteed or the separation of powers determined, has no Constitution; that it is the result of this provision that in principle it must not be carried out substantial breaches of the right of interested persons to exercise an effective remedy before a court" (decision No. 96 April 1996)
Gold:
Technical protection measures can be implemented to make captivity users of specific materials and services. The requirement for interoperability of technical protection measures has therefore been imposed with respect to the public interest objective of convergence of techniques and accessibility of the content of the public, and therefore of the circulation of ideas and knowledge.
The user is the recipient of this essential right in the information society.
If the law recognizes the right to interoperability to the user, it immediately deprives the user of his or her effective exercise by denying him or her the right of effective remedy to enforce it (art. 14, paragraph 3, of the law).
In fact, it is prohibited for the public, the consumer, to refer to the Independent Regulatory Authority, exclusive jurisdiction, the law that restricts this faculty to "industrials" and service operators (art. 14, paragraph 3, of the law). In doing so, the legislator deprives the consumer of the quality to act, condition of any remedy, to obtain the respect and effectiveness of the benefit of interoperability, while it is the recipient, and curiously leaves this care to entrepreneurs (1).
The legislator is not afraid to increase its inconsistency by depriving intellectual property rights holders of the right to seize the Authority, while technical measures are designed to protect their rights and their implementation must be given their prior agreement.
3. The violation of the rights of defence and the right to a fair trial.
The lack of warranty for the control and evidence of offences:
The law ' s repressive system is designed to ensure respect for intellectual property rights by combating certain uses of protected works and objects.
The achievement of this objective requires monitoring in the intangible space comprised of computer networks and memoranda whose volatility increases the need, by coherence with the intended objective, of automated, quasi-general and constant control.
In addition to the obvious risks of reaching privacy, the question arises of the mode of evidence which essentially can only result from automated and intrusive devices, whose development has already been found in the material space of road traffic.
If the Commission has admitted this type of control and evidence of the commission of an offence, it is by recalling that the determination of this mode of evidence falls within the jurisdiction of the legislator and that the latter must include it with decisive guarantees for its constitutionality.
However, this is not the case in this case. Since the legislator had not introduced this form of evidence in the field of intellectual property and digital networks by a special legislative provision, he was unable to provide it with guarantees to ensure its constitutionality.
Thus, the law, once again, deserves constitutional censorship by lack of predictability, strength and not to offer the legal security necessary to guarantee fundamental freedoms.
4. The breaches of the principle of equality before the law and the infringement of the ownership rights of intellectual property rights holders (art. 21 of the law).
4.1. Discrimination of free-of-charge works (art. 21 of the Act).
The Constitutional Council censored: "[the] direct limitations to the right to dispose, an essential attribute of the right to property (...) [which] are of a gravity such as the infringement of the right to property which denies the meaning and scope of this right guaranteed by Article 17 of the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights" (Decision No. 96-373 DC of 9 April 1996, Organic Law on the Status of Autonomy of French Polynesia).
The Commission also found: "that there may be no limitations to the exercise [of a right of use of property, the attribute of the right of ownership] only on the dual condition that these limitations obey for the purposes of general interest and do not have a character of gravity such as the meaning and scope of the right of ownership would be denied" (Decision 2000-434 DC of 20 July 2000).
Similarly, it is considered that: "the principle of equality is not opposed to the fact that the legislator rules differently from different situations or to derogate from equality for reasons of general interest, provided that in both cases the difference of treatment resulting from it is in relation to the subject matter of the law that establishes it" (Decision No. 91-304 DC of 15 January 1992).
Thus:
In addition to the previous criticisms of the constitutionality of Article 21 (supra I, 1.3), other grounds for non-compliance with the principle of equality and infringement of the right to property call its censure.
The article in question has only entered its scope of application "the exchange of files subject to remuneration of copyright", in so doing it introduces discrimination not in accordance with the Constitution for lack of objective justification and to be irrelevant to the law or even contrary to its objective.
Because:
(a) The author's right is not limited to the right to remuneration, it includes the essential right to authorize or prohibit the use of his work, co-substantial to intellectual property.
The limitation of the offence to the only protected works subject to pay is the denial of the existence and development of the non-marketed creative sector, which, although not requiring compensation, in some cases, does not claim respect for intellectual property.
By reducing in the present case the intellectual property to the sole right to remuneration, the legislator implicitly proceeded to the pure and simple expropriation of one of the essential attributes of this property - the right to authorize or prohibit, the very foundation of exclusive law, and therefore the right for the author to set the limits of the use of his or her creation on a free basis, a circumstance which fully justifies the right of the holder to make
Should the sharing party be discriminated against and therefore punished by less rights than the one who gets paid?
In doing so, the legislator has not only ignored the new reality of the information society's environment, that is, the emergence of a non-market creative sector, but has made a differentiation of treatment in the protection of categories of discriminatory authors because without grounds for general interest precise, justified and proportionate to the subject matter of the provision - the protection of intellectual property - and thus resulting in an infringement of intellectual property - and thus resulting in a violation of intellectual property rights.
Indeed, the objective of the legislator is to ensure the protection of intellectual property rights holders, it is therefore unjustified, and even contrary to this objective, to distinguish between the merchant sector and the non-market sector by prohibiting the publication, provision or communication to the public of exchange software for the first and authorizing it for the second, thus consenting to deliver the non-market sector to the misdeeds of which it wants to protect the market sector
(b) The neighbouring rights are excluded from the provision. Only works subject to remuneration of copyright, which induces that neighbouring rights are excluded from the scope of the protective provision.
This blatant discrimination has no set of grounds. She's unjustifiable.
Creations and investments that are not eligible for copyright benefit from the intellectual property regime: the interpretation of artists, producers of phonograms or databases... These benefits or objects are protected by neighbouring rights.
Deviating them from the scope of the protective provision of intellectual property is a differentiation of treatment of a discriminatory nature not in accordance with the Constitution, in addition to the manifest infringement of the ownership rights of neighbouring rights holders, whose exclusion results in denaturation of the meaning and scope of that property.
4.2. On the discrimination of « pairs to pairs» software (art. 24 of the law).
Section 24 of the Act introduces a difference in criminal treatment between reproductions of an unlicensed protected object for personal purposes, made available from a " pairs" software on the one hand, or another vector of communication on the other.
If the principle of equality is not opposed to the fact that the legislator rules differently from different situations or that it derogates from equality for reasons of general interest, it is necessary that in either case "the difference in treatment resulting from it is in relation to the subject matter of the law that establishes it and its motive is specified" (Decision No. 91-304 DC of 15 January 1992)
In addition to the violation of the constitutional principle of the legality of penalties and offences (the peer-to-peer software being legally indefinite and technically indefinite), this provision introduces a difference in treatment between communication vectors that are based on no objective justification.
Indeed, the infringement of the right of intellectual property is identical that it results from a software of " pairs to pairs" or another vector of communication (forums, "new group", hard disk sharing, instant messaging...).
The difference in criminal treatment based on the vector of communication is not based on any specified and therefore justified grounds; It therefore results in a breach of equality before the law not in conformity with the Constitution.
4.3. On the infringement of the copyright of performers (art. 44 of the law).
If the legitimacy of the objective of this provision to allow the National Audiovisual Institute to carry out its public service missions is undeniable, its implementation by law has a disproportionate and unjustified infringement of the ownership rights of performers.
Indeed, by giving the organizations of representative employees of the artists-interprets the exclusive power to authorize, prohibit and define the conditions for the operation of the interpretations of the artists-interprets, the law dispossessesses them of an essential attribute of the right of ownership and therefore the assignors or agents chosen by them, including the companies of perception and distribution of rights.
The legislator did not consider it necessary to justify the specific cause of general interest of this infringement of the right to property.
In addition, such an exception regime for a single institution discriminates against other institutions pursuing the same objectives of general interest in the conservation and dissemination of documentary funds.
In addition, this breach is not accompanied by any guarantee of transparency, thus characterizing a negative incompetence of the legislator.
The council may finally question the conformity of such a provision with the directive that the law has to transpose and which restricts the exceptions allowed to the exclusive rights of artists and interpreters.
5. A new regime of incoherent private copying with legal insecurity.
Many of the new provisions of the law, as they combine with the previous regime that is maintained, lead to a regime of private copying that is now both seriously inconsistent and bears legal insecurity that disproportionately affects private property in matters of spirit work, the rights of the recipients of these same works and the protection of privacy as principles of constitutional scope.
Article 16 of the Act, by allowing the persons entitled to "assign for purpose" to the technical measures of protection "to limit the number of copies" establishes a power to prohibit or authorize the private copy, without, however, having been altered accordingly, the provision of the intellectual property code which, in the very definition of this exception, lays down the principle that the rights holders "can not prohibit"
The law also sets new legal limits to private copying, on the one hand, by defining in its article 24 a new conventional offence corresponding to personal download practices by use of a peer-to-peer software (a practice that the judge had previously been led to assimilation to private copying), on the other hand, by asserting to its article 16 that the various exceptions, including that of private copying, could now be subordinated to "an access to
Finally, in an attempt to safeguard the fairness of the device, section 19 of the Act provides that the fixing of the remuneration for private copy which so far depended only on the capacity of the copy holders will also take into account the "level of use" of the technical protection measures and "their impact on the uses of the exception of private copy", and specifies that this resource cannot now "pay for private copying acts that have already given rise to compensation.
For both authors and users, the conflicting overlay of these provisions leads to the greatest uncertainty as to the conditions of application and effects of the regime arising from:
In the exercise of the power to limit the number of authorized copies that are now recognized to them, rights holders are in fact subject to a series of external limitations that makes them impossible to be reasonably assured of the legality and economic consequences of the decisions they make. The new independent authority created by section 17 of the Act is thus entitled to "fix the minimum number of copies authorized in the context of the private copy exception", which may contradict a posteriori the original decision of any entitled person. In addition, the judge to whom the law wrongly entrusts to evaluate each exception under the "three-step test" may also deduct an estimate of the number of copies to be allowed less restrictive than that of the entitled persons. They are thus exposed to risks of legal denial by external authorities who prohibit a reasonable and peaceful exercise of the right to limitation of the private copy which the law intends to assign to them.
In addition, they are now at risk that the exercise of the same right would induce unpredictable economic consequences on private copy remuneration. This right will in fact be exercised for each person in the total disregard of the implications that will subsequently be drawn to the setting of the level of remuneration. In addition, having introduced these new criteria only to the level of setting up the overall salary collection scales and not also to that of the individual distribution criteria of this resource, the law is a breach of unjustifiable equality between entitled persons, those who do not exercise any limitation of the number of copies subscribing in the same way as others the consequences of the decrease in remuneration resulting from the overall use of this option.
At the same time and vice versa, the new regime sets out each of the licensees who have made such a limitation to a legal challenge to requalify the copies so authorized a priori as intrinsically defined and intended uses in the initial consumer price, and thereby exclude them from the remuneration for private copy as "having already given rise to financial compensation". The risk is even higher than contradictory court decisions on the nature of the remuneration applicable to copies that would be limited a priori by the rights holders: implicit part of the sale price or use that would be entitled to the subsequent distribution of remuneration for private copy. The result is legal and economic uncertainty that is incompatible with a peaceful exercise of their intellectual property rights.
Non less unjustifiable breaches of privacy, economic equity and their fundamental rights are against users.
Firstly, there is a major uncertainty for them as to the legality of practices that they can, in good faith, consider to be subject to private copying, under section 24 defining those of downloading acts that, while excluding the offence of counterfeiting, are now subject to a contravention. This definition, in fact, seriously leaves the qualification of downloading actions carried out by processes other than peer-to-peer, but also those that would respond to "private use of the copyist" (in the sense of private copying) without that "private" use being considered to be "for personal purposes" within the meaning of Article 24. As long as they are explicitly excluded from the exceptional regime provided for in Article 24, will the judge have to have such acts fall within the common law of the counterfeit or on the contrary to admit that, unlike the download in pairs or for personal purposes, these same acts simply fall within the legal domain of the private copy? Evidently, one or the other of these alternatives is absurd and introduce, in one sense or another, a major rupture of equality between practices of a very similar nature and scope. This results without justifiable reasoning a degree of uncertainty and a disturbance of enjoyment incompatible with the normal exercise of the rights of users, recipients of the works of spirit and freedom of expression.
The law also seriously omitted to specify the criteria and terms of control and evidence that it could be established that a copy act carried out in the private space does not rely on "leicit access" to the work concerned within the meaning of Article 16, or exceeds "personal purposes" within the meaning of Article 24. As a result, while none of these two audits can obviously be carried out without major public interference in the privacy of privacy, the legislator has neglected to define precisely, as it required, the conditions of the legality of such incursions.
Finally, from the perspective of economic fairness, users, symmetrically to the right-holders, cannot now reasonably know when acquiring a work subject to a limitation of the number of copies, if these copies are now subject to the normal operation of the work as it is subject to the authority to authorize and prohibit, or if they enter the field justifying the remuneration for private copying. More generally, the setting of this remuneration by a sovereign commission, outside the parliamentary power and where consumer representatives remain very minority, in no way ensures that the adjustments expected to be made based on the impact of technical limitation measures will effectively be proportionate to the restrictions imposed on the effective exercise of the private copy. A major risk of economic equity is thus opened by law.
For all these reasons, the censorship of this new regime can only intervene.
Accordingly,
With regard to the many shortcomings and irregularities that have just been highlighted, the appellants call for the Constitutional Council to seize the issue of conformity to the Constitution, both in the form and in the substance, of the law on copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society.
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We ask you to believe, Mr.President, ladies and gentlemen, the members of the Constitutional Council, in the expression of our high consideration.
(List of signatories: see Decision No. 2006-540 DC.)
