Tuesday 15 September 2015

French Ministry of Culture Unveils Committee to Oversee Charter regarding Online Payment Methods





                                                                       


                                                                Flower Power



Earlier this year in March the French Minister of Culture, Fleur Pellerin, presented a new framework for dealing with online piracy and signed an anti-piracy charter known as ‘charter of good practices in advertising for protection of copyright and related rights’ setting out best practices in relation to advertising on pirate sites

The campaign against the pirate sites continues as the Minister launched a monitoring committee of best practices in the area of online payment methods, on September 10, as the next tool in the government’s toolbox to fight piracy (building on recommendations made in the report submitted to the government in May 2014 by Mireille Imbert-Quaretta (a member of HADOPI), itself a follow-up to the Lescure report from May 2013.

Adopting the “follow-the-money” approach espoused by the Imbert-Quaretta report, the committee is to work with a group representing payment actors including MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe andthe French Banking Federation on the one hand and organizations representing rights holders on the other hand. These two groups will meet at least twice a year to identify, on the basis of specific criteria, sites that are unlawful, and consider ways to cut their funding as well as, where appropriate, blocking payments thereto. Since the approach is non-binding, the committee’s success will depend largely on the payment actors' willingness to play ballThe real challenge for the committee is the sheer size of the problem. The data suggest that there are over 13 million pirate sites users in France.

The Ministry of Culture has indicated that it wants to push this initiative at the European level, thereby giving it an international dimension.

Link to Advertising Charter:  here

Link to Imbert-Quaretta report from May 2014:  here

Link to Pierre Lescure report from May 2013:  here 

1 comment:

FrenchKat said...

By way of clarification, the committee is not actually drawing up a charter. It will meet regularly and monitor the situation and propose various recommendations and solutions.

Also, for greater context, this initiative targets primarily streaming and direct downloading sites that take direct payment from users (for faster streaming, premium accounts, etc.). Peer-to-peer file sharing falls under the remit of HADOPI and its graduated response regime.