By Dirk Voorhoof, Ghent University and Inger
Høedt-Rasmussen, Copenhagen Business School
For the first
time in a judgment on the merits, the European Court of Human Rights has
clarified that a conviction based on copyright law for illegally reproducing or
publicly communicating copyright protected material can be regarded as an
interference with the right of freedom of expression and information under
Article 10 of the European Convention. Such interference must be in accordance
with the three conditions enshrined in the second paragraph of Article 10 of
the Convention. This means that a conviction or any other judicial decision
based on copyright law, restricting a person’s or an organisation’s freedom of
expression, must be pertinently motivated as being necessary in a democratic
society, apart from being prescribed by law and pursuing a legitimate aim.
It is, in
other words, no longer sufficient to justify a sanction or any other judicial
order restricting one’s artistic or journalistic freedom of expression on the
basis that a copyright law provision has been infringed. Neither is it
sufficient to consider that the unauthorised use, reproduction or public
communication of a work cannot rely on one of the narrowly interpreted
exceptions in the copyright law itself, including the application of the
so-called three-step test (art. 5.5 EU Directive 2001/29 of 22 May 2001). The
European Court’s judgment of 10 January 2013 in the case of Ashby Donald and others v. France unambiguously declares
Article 10 of the Convention applicable in copyright cases interfering with the
right of freedom of expression and information of others, adding an external
human rights perspective to the justification of copyright enforcement. Due to
the important wide margin of appreciation available to the national authorities
in this particular case, the impact of Article 10 however is very modest and
minimal.
Pictures published on the Internet, infringing copyright
In this case,
the applicants were Robert
Ashby Donald, Marcio
Madeira Moraes and
Olivier Claisse, respectively an American, a Brazilian and a
French national living in New-York,
Paris and Le Perreux-sur-Marne. All three are fashion photographers. The case
concerned their conviction in France for copyright infringement following
the publication of pictures on
the Internet site Viewfinder of a
fashion company run
by Mr. Donald
and Mr. Moraes. The photos were
taken by Mr. Claisse at fashion shows in
Paris in 2003 and published without the permission of the fashion houses. The three fashion photographers were ordered by the Court of Appeal of Paris
to pay fines between 3.000 and 8.000 euro and an award of damages to the French
design clothing Federation and five fashion houses, all together amounting to 255.000
euro. Donald, Moraes and Claisse were also ordered to pay for the publication
of the judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal in three professional newspapers
or magazines. In its judgment of 5 February 2008 the Supreme Court (Court de Cassation)
dismissed the applicants’ argumentation based on Article 10 of the Convention and
on Article 122-9° of the French Copyright Act (Code de la Propriété Intellectuele). The Supreme Court was of the
opinion that the Court of Appeal had sufficiently justified its decision.
Accordingly, the applicants could not rely on an exception in French copyright
law, allowing the reproduction, representation or public communication of works
exclusively for news reporting and information purposes.
In
Strasbourg the applicants complained in particular of a breach of their rights
under Article 10 (freedom of expression and information) of the European
Convention. The European Court declared the application admissible and not
manifestly ill-founded (§ 25), but concluded on the merits of the case that the
conviction of the applicants because of breach of the French Copyright Act did
not amount to a violation of Article 10 of the Convention by the French
authorities. The Court was indeed of the opinion that the conviction for breach
of copyright and the award of damages was to be considered as an interference
with their rights protected by Article 10 of the Convention. However, this
interference was prescribed by law, pursued the legitimate aim of protecting
the rights of others and was to be considered necessary in a democratic
society.
The
Court explicitly recognises the applicability of Article 10 in this case : “La Cour rappelle que l’article 10 de la
Convention a vocation à s’appliquer à la communication au moyen de l’Internet (..),
quel que soit le type de message qu’il s’agit de véhiculer (..), et même
lorsque l’objectif poursuivi est de nature lucrative (..). Elle rappelle aussi
que la liberté d’expression comprend la publication de photographies (..). Elle en déduit que la publication des
photographies litigieuses sur un site Internet dédié à la mode et proposant au
public des images de défilés à la consultation libre ou payante et à la vente
relève de l’exercice du droit à la liberté d’expression, et que la condamnation
des requérants pour ces faits s’analyse en une ingérence dans celui-ci” (§
34). The Court hereby confirms its approach that while freedom of expression is
subject to exceptions, these exceptions must be construed strictly, and the
need for any restrictions must be established convincingly : “La liberté d’expression (..) telle que la consacre l’article 10, (..) est assortie
d’exceptions qui appellent toutefois une interprétation étroite, et le besoin
de la restreindre doit se trouver établi de manière convaincante” (§ 38).
A particular wide margin of appreciation
The
Court is of the opinion that in this case a wide margin of appreciation is to
be given to the domestic authorities, as the publication of the pictures of
models at a fashion show and the fashion clothing shown on the catwalk in Paris
was not related to an issue of general interest for society and concerned
rather a kind of “commercial speech”. As the Court points out: “En l’espèce, les photographies litigieuses
ont été publiées sur un site Internet appartenant à une société gérée par les
deux premiers requérants, dans le but notamment de les vendre ou d’y donner
accès contre rémunération. La démarche des requérants était donc avant tout
commerciale. De plus, si l’on ne peut nier l’attrait du public pour la mode en
général et les défilés de haute couture en particulier, on ne saurait dire que
les requérants ont pris part à un débat d’intérêt général alors qu’ils se sont
bornés à rendre des photographies de défilés de mode accessibles au public”
(§ 39).
The
member states are furthermore in a position to balance conflicting rights and
interests, such as the right of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the
Convention with the right of property as protected by Article 1 of the First
Protocol to the Convention. The Court, referring to its 2007 Grand Chamber judgment
in Anheuser-Busch
Inc. v. Portugal, reiterates that “l’ingérence dans le droit à la liberté
d’expression des requérants visait à la protection des droits d’auteur des
créateurs de mode. Dès lors que l’article 1 du Protocole no 1
s’applique à la propriété intellectuelle
(..), elle visait ainsi à la protection de droits
garantis par la Convention ou ses Protocoles” (§ 40).
Two
crucial elements in this case justify that the national authorities enjoy a
particularly wide margin of appreciation. The European Court refers to “une marge d’appréciation particulièrement
importante” (§ 41). These elements are the “commercial speech”-character of the publication of the pictures on
the website and the balancing exercise the Court needs to undertake regarding
the conflicting rights guaranteed by Article 10 of the Convention and the right
of property as protected by Article 1 of the First Protocol to the Convention.
The
European Court consequently refers to the Paris Court of Appeal’s finding that the
applicants had reproduced and represented the pictures without authorisation by
the copyright holders, hence infringing the rights of intellectual property of
others. The European Court refers to the reasoning by the Paris Court “que les requérants avaient,
en connaissance de cause, diffusé les photographies litigeuses sans
l’autorisation des titulaires des droits d’auteurs, qu’ils ne pouvaient se
dégager de leur responsabilité en se prévalant du fait que le système de
l’engagement de presse était inadapté ou mal respecté, et qu’ils s’étaient donc
rendus coupables du délit de contrefaçon. Elle ne voit pas de raison de
considérer que le juge interne a excédé sa marge d’appréciation en faisant par
ces motifs prévaloir le droit au respect des biens des créateurs de mode sur le
droit à la liberté d’expression des requérants” (§ 42).
Finally
the European Court does not consider the fines and the substantial award of
damages as disproportionate to the legitimate aim pursued, arguing that the
applicants gave no evidence that these sanctions had “financially strangled” them :
“La Cour observe toutefois avec le
Gouvernement que, si les requérants affirment avoir été « étranglés
financièrement », ils ne produisent aucun élément relatif aux conséquences
de ces condamnations sur leur situation financière ». The Court accepts
the reasoning of the domestic courts and their calculation of the damages, with
respect for the guarantees of a fair trial not being under dispute in this
matter. The Court “relève en outre que le juge interne a fixé
ces montants à l’issue d’une procédure contradictoire dont l’équité n’est pas
en cause et a dûment motivé sa décision, précisant en particulier les
circonstances qui, selon son appréciation, les justifiaient” (§ 43).
In these circumstances and taking into account the particular important margin of appreciation of the national
authorities, the Court concludes unanimously that there is no violation of
Article 10 of the Convention.
Relying on Article 7 (no punishment without law), the
applicants also alleged that, in refusing to apply an exception to copyright
law provided for under an Article of the French Intellectual Property Code, the
Court of Cassation failed to apply the principle that the criminal law must be
strictly interpreted. The European Court however dismissed this part of the
application as manifestly ill-founded.
Comment
The
judgment of the European Court of 10 January 2013 is interesting for several reasons.
1.Emerging internet cases.
First of all, the judgment illustrates that cases of (alleged) breaches
of fundamental rights and freedoms, enshrined in the European Convention and its
Protocols, situated in the digital, online world have started to find their way
to the European Court of Human Rights. During the past few years and months the
European Court has delivered several judgments in “internet”-cases related to
freedom of expression and information, such as in Times Newspapers Ltd. v. United Kingdom (ECtHR 10 March 2009), Editorial Board of Pravoye Delo and Shtekel v. Ukraine (5
May 2011) and in its Grand Chamber judgment in Mouvement Raëlien Suisse v. Switzerland (13 July 2012).
In Szima v. Hungary the case
concerned a sanction of the person who had editorial control over a police
trade union’s website. She was also the author of a series of blogs and
articles that were considered as instigation to insubordination by the
Hungarian authorities. The European Court accepted that there was a sufficient
“pressing social need” to interfere with the applicant’s freedom of expression
(ECtHR 9 October 2012).
In Peta Deutschland v. Germany
a civil injunction preventing the applicant association inter alia from publishing seven
specified posters via the internet, comparing the atrocities of the genocide of
the Nazi-regime with animal suffering and hence banalising and instrumentalising
the holocaust, was not considered as a violation of Article 10
(ECtHR 8 November 2012).
In a judgment of 18 December 2012, the
European Court came to the conclusion that the decision taken and upheld by the
Turkish authorities to block internet access to Google Sites amounted to a
violation of Article 10. The decision to block Google Sites had been taken to prevent further access to one particular website hosted by Google
which included content deemed offensive to the memory of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,
the founder of the Turkish Republic. With its judgment in Ahmet Yildirim
v. Turkey the European Court of Human Rights has reinforced the right of
individuals to access the internet, as in its ruling against the wholesale
blocking of online content, it asserted that the internet has now become one of
the principal means of exercising the right to freedom of expression and
information (ECtHR 18 December 2012).
Due to this emerging case law
related to internet and other new forms of technology, including rights and
freedoms guaranteed by the Convention, the European Court has recently updated its fact sheet on the European Court’s
case law on New Technologies.
The judgment
of 10 January 2013 in Ashby Donald and
others v. France, concerning a copyright infringement following
the publication of pictures on an Internet site, is the first and will certainly not be the
last case before the European Court in 2013 which is internet-related.
2.Money or message driven?
Secondly
the Court’s judgment is a clear illustration of the difference between, on the
one hand, expression and content contributing to an issue of public debate or a
debate of general interest for society, and on the other hand, “commercial
speech”. Speech, messages, pictures and content which are merely money driven
do not enjoy the added value of the protection guaranteed by Article 10 of the
Convention. In the Court’s view, the margin of appreciation in such
circumstances is a very wide one, even in a case where the interference by the
authorities takes the form of a criminal conviction or a very high award of
damages, both ‘sanctions’ with a risk of having a chilling effect.
This
approach was also recently confirmed in Mouvement
Raëlien Suisse v. Switzerland, in which the Court stated : “Whilst there is little scope under Article
10 § 2 of the Convention for restrictions on political speech
(..), a wider
margin of appreciation is generally available to the Contracting States when
regulating freedom of expression in relation to matters liable to offend
intimate personal convictions within the sphere of morals or, especially,
religion (..). Similarly, States have a broad margin of appreciation in the
regulation of speech in commercial matters or advertising”
(§ 61, also referring to ECtHR 20 November 1989, Markt intern Verlag GmbH and Klaus Beermann v.
Germany and ECtHR 24
February 1994, Casado Coca v. Spain).
This aspect is also emphasised in the case Ashby Donald and others v. France. Hence
no doubt in this case : “La démarche des requérants
était donc avant tout commerciale”. There is indeed no
indication that the applicants were involved in a debate of general interest
(see e.g. Barthold v. Germany, Hertel v. Switzerland, Stambuk v. Germany,
Vereinigung Gegen Tierfabriken Schweiz VGT v. Switzerland and Peta Deutschland v. Germany). The three
fashion photographers only made the catwalk pictures of Paris fashion shows
accessible to the public.
It
would undoubtedly have been different if the pictures posted on the Internet
had contributed to a public debate e.g. on women’s rights in the world of fashion,
or on public health issues related to anorexia and young girls being tempted to
look like models in the glossy fashion magazines. In this case the photos were
solely used in a commercial setting, while the pictures contained no further
message than reproducing the images of the Paris fashion shows. It is not
because the website or the media platform is part of a commercial company, that
the invoked freedom of expression will receive a lower degree of protection
from the scope of Article 10 of the Convention. What essentially matters is
whether the publication, the article, the expression or the pictures contribute
to a debate of general interest, a notion which is broadly interpreted by the
European Court of Human Rights : “what
constitutes a subject of general interest will depend on the circumstances of
the case” (ECtHR (Grand Chamber) 7 February 2012, Axel Springer Verlag AG v. Germany, § 90. See also D. VOORHOOF,
“Freedom of Expression under the European Human Rights System”, Inter-American and European Human Rights
Journal / Revista Interamericana y
Europa de Derechos Humanos 2009/1-2, 3-49).
If
the publication or the public communication of the litigious pictures had
contributed to such a debate of general interest, and if the publication of the
pictures had been justified in this context (ECtHR 18 January 2011, MGN Limited v. United Kingdom and ECtHR
(Grand Chamber) 7 February 2012, Von
Hannover nr. 2 v. Germany), a more strict scrutiny by the European Court
from the perspective of Article 10 would have been necessary, and at the same
time reducing the margin of appreciation available to the national authorities.
3.Copyright law enforcement must be in accordance with
Article 10 of the Convention
Another
reason why the European Court accepts a wide margin of appreciation in Ashby Donald and other v. France is
because it has to balance two conflicting fundamental rights enshrined in the
Convention and its Protocols. In such a context the Court is required to verify whether the
domestic authorities struck a fair balance when protecting two values
guaranteed by the Convention and its Protocols. In this case the Court had to
balance on the one hand, freedom of expression protected by Article 10
and, on the other, the right to property enshrined in Article 1 of the First
Protocol. Especially since its Grand Chamber judgment in Anheuser-Busch Incl. v. Portugal in a trademark dispute, there can be no doubt that “Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is applicable to
intellectual property as such” (ECtHR (Grand Chamber) 11 January 2007, §
72). Indeed, in Melnychuk v. Ukraine,
which concerned an alleged violation of the applicant’s copyright, the Court had
earlier decided that Article 1 of the First Protocol was applicable to
intellectual property (ECtHR (decision) 7 July 2005, Melnychuk v. Ukraine).
Where
the balancing exercise between two Convention rights has been undertaken by the
national authorities in conformity with the criteria laid down in the Court’s
case-law, it requires strong reasons for the European Court to substitute its
view for that of the domestic courts (ECtHR (Grand Chamber) 7 February 2012, Axel Springer Verlag AG v. Germany, §
88). However, the
circumstance itself of the balancing of conflicting rights does not exclude a
thorough analysis by the Court of the findings and reasoning by the national
courts, as is demonstrated in the Court’s Grand Chamber judgments of 7 February
2012 in the cases of Axel Springer Verlag
AG v. Germany and Von Hannover nr. 2
v. Germany.
The European
Court of Justice in some recent judgments has also confirmed this approach when
it had to balance the enforcement of copyright on the internet with other
rights. The EU Court of Justice in Scarlet
v. Sabam (24 November 2011) has reiterated that “the protection of the right to intellectual property
is indeed enshrined in Article 17(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of
the European Union (‘the Charter’). There is, however, nothing whatsoever in
the wording of that provision or in the Court’s case-law to suggest that that
right is inviolable and must for that reason be absolutely protected” (§ 43).
According to the CJEU “the protection of the fundamental right to property, which includes the
rights linked to intellectual property, must be balanced against the protection
of other fundamental rights”, including
the right of freedom of expression and information guaranteed by Article 10 of
the Convention (CJEU 24 November 2011, C-70/10, Scarlet Extended NV v. Belgische Vereniging van Auteurs, Componisten
en Uitgevers CVBA (SABAM); CJEU
16 February 2012, C‑360/10, Belgische Vereniging van Auteurs, Componisten
en Uitgevers CVBA (SABAM) v. Netlog NV. See also CJEU (GC) 16
December 2008, C-73/07, Tietosuojavaltuutettu
/ Satakunnan Markkinapörssi Oy, Satamedia Oy).
The CJEU clarified
that “in the context of measures adopted to
protect copyright holders, national authorities and courts must strike a fair
balance between the protection of copyright and the protection of the
fundamental rights of individuals who are affected by such measures” (CJEU
24 November 2011, C-70/10, § 45). From this perspective, the CJEU
considered that an injunction to
install an internet filtering system as a measure of enforcement of copyright “could potentially undermine freedom of
information”, since that system might not distinguish adequately between
unlawful content and lawful content, with the result that its introduction
could lead to the blocking of lawful communications (compare with ECtHR 18
December 2012, Ahmet Yildirim v. Turkey).
In
the case of Ashby Donald and others v.
France the European Court of Human Rights did not need to undertake itself
such a balancing exercise, as it found that the French judicial authorities
have done this exercise in a proper way. As the Court stated, it saw no reason
to disagree with the findings by the French courts : “Elle ne voit pas de raison de considérer que le juge
interne a excédé sa marge d’appréciation en faisant par ces motifs prévaloir le
droit au respect des biens des créateurs de mode sur le droit à la liberté
d’expression des requérants” (§ 42). The Court followed the same reasoning regarding the
proportionality of the fine and the award of damages the applicants are ordered
to pay (§ 43).
The deferential approach by the European Court, due to the appropriate way the French
courts have handled the case and especially due to the fact that it ‘only’
concerned an interference in the context of “commercial speech” does not exclude at all
that in other cases the European Court may scrutinize in a more strict way the
balancing of a conflict between the right of freedom of expression and
copyright. That will especially be the case in matters that concern prior
restraint, such as the blocking of internet sites, artistic freedom of
expression, political speech, use of official documents, reproduction and
public communication of works for educational or scientific purposes or NGOs
participating in debate on matters of public concern such as health and environmental
issues. Similarly, in cases where journalists and media are exercising their
public watchdog function in a democracy, in cases of parody, caricatures or
other forms of transformative use and when sanctions risk to have a chilling effect on the freedom of
expression and information in a democracy. In such cases interferences with the
right of freedom of expression and information, based on copyright law, will
indeed need to undergo a more careful balancing test between Article 10 and
Article 1 of the First Protocol.
Some national courts, within their margin of
appreciation, already have referred to or have applied Article 10 in cases
where the enforcement of copyright law otherwise could lead to a violation of the
right of freedom of expression and information guaranteed by Article 10 of the
Convention (see e.g. Cass. Fr. 19 October 2006 Camel/Japan
Tobacco v. CNMRT; Rb. Amsterdam, 22 December 2006, Staat der Nederlanden v. Greenpeace and Rb. ‘s-Gravenhage (Summary Proceeding) 4 May 2011, Louis Vuitton v. Nadia Plesner).
Although the European Court did not find a violation of Article 10 in
the case of Ashby Donald and others v.
France, the judgment in this case has definitely confirmed that copyright
enforcement, restrictions on the use of copyright protected works and sanctions
based on copyright law ultimately can be regarded as interferences with the
right of freedom of expression and information. This requires inevitably a
balancing test between the rights involved. In terms of predictability of the outcome
of such a balancing test, a clear set of criteria need to be developed, like the Grand Chamber did in Axel Springer Verlag AG v. Germany, balancing the Articles 8 and 10
of the Convention (see §§ 89-109). As
long as it is unclear which criteria should be used in this balancing exercise
and how they should be applied, legal advisors and counsels, whose
predictability is founded in legal sources, might be troubled when the
balancing test arguments can be derived from an extensive and unpredictable sample
of legal, financial, commercial, ethical, technical or factual elements or justifications.
Unfortunately the facts and circumstances in the case of Ashby Donald and others v. France did not give a real opportunity
to the European Court to give preliminary assistance in this matter. This
leaves, however, an uncertain future for the application of Article 10 in matters
of copyright enforcement interfering with the right of freedom of expression
and information.
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P.B.
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D.L. ZIMMERMAN en H. FIRST (eds.), Expanding the Boundaries of Intellectual
Property, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, 343-363.
D.
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C. GEIGER, Droit d’auteur et droit du public à
l’information. Approche de droit comparé, Parijs, Litec, 2004.
C. GEIGER, “Pour une plus grande flexibilité dans le
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A. LUCAS, “Droit d’auteur,
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A. STROWEL and F. TULKENS,
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liberté d’expression est-elle un argument légitime en faveur du non-respect de
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I. HØEDT-RASMUSSEN
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