Concept

Société Plon et autres v. Pierre Hugo et autres

Résumé
Société Plon et autres v. Pierre Hugo et autres, 04–15.543 Arrêt n° 125 (Jan. 30, 2007) is a decision by the First Civil Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (the high court in France) which ruled that François Cérésa's adaptations/sequels of Les Misérables do not per se violate the droit moral of its author Victor Hugo and his estate. Droit moral originated in France, this case serves to limit the scope of that right and expand the public domain in French copyright law. This overruled and remanded to the lower appeals court, the Cour d'Appeal de Paris, which had declared a symbolic 1 Euro penalty, declaring that "no sequel can ever be added to so great a work as Les Misérables". Ceresa wrote Cosette (titled “Cosette ou le temps des illusions” in French) and Marius (French title “Marius ou le Fugitif”) in 2001, 136 years after Victor Hugo's death, and 149 years after the original publication of Les Misérables. While the presumptive duration of copyright rights had expired, there remained a question of whether Hugo's heirs were entitled to rights under the theory of droit moral. This case was brought by Victor Hugo's great-great-grandson Pierre Hugo (heirs are severally capable of bringing actions for droit moral under French law) and Société des gens de lettres alleging infringement by the publisher of both books Plon and their author Cérésa. Hugo claimed damages of 675,000 Euro. The droit moral, codified in French law under article L111-1 of the Intellectual Property code, provides for a non-marketable right enforceable against all by the author, corresponding with the embodiment of the self that is contained within each respective work. While the term of economic copyright in France was relatively settled, a conflict within this case was the duration of these non-economic rights which under a literally reading of L121-7-1 are indefinite. Distinguishing the economic from non-economic even outside the context of the Anglo-American IP construct is difficult. In a characteristically short opinion the Cour de Cassation addressed three issues.
À propos de ce résultat
Cette page est générée automatiquement et peut contenir des informations qui ne sont pas correctes, complètes, à jour ou pertinentes par rapport à votre recherche. Il en va de même pour toutes les autres pages de ce site. Veillez à vérifier les informations auprès des sources officielles de l'EPFL.