1 October 2015Jurisdiction reportsAurélia Marie

France: The formalities of assigning copyright

Article L131-3 of the French Intellectual Property Code provides that “assignment of copyright is subject to the conditions that each of the assigned rights is separately mentioned in the deed of assignment and that the field of exploitation of the assigned rights is defined as to its scope and destination, as to its geographical extent and as to its duration”.

The November 2006 decision by the French Supreme Court in the EOS case restricted the application of this article to certain assignments only.

That decision ruled that “only the agreements listed under article L132-2 al.1 of the French Intellectual Property Code, namely representation agreements, publishing agreements and audiovisual production agreements” were subject to specific requirements as to their form.

It therefore phased out the application of this provision for other kinds of transfer agreements. The court confirmed a Court of Appeal ruling which had decided that evidence of the assignment of copyright was free from formal requirements and that this evidence could be brought according to the general rules provided by articles 1,341 to 1,348 of the French Civil Code.

In a September 2009 decision the Supreme Court ruled the opposite way regarding a copyright assignment contract concluded between a teacher and a private establishment. This contract had provided for the transfer of the teacher’s rights related to all documents that were prepared by the teacher for a criminal law course. The teacher made a claim against the private establishment in respect of the publication of a book reproducing his course (same ideas, same lesson plan, and large extracts from the original texts).

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