The decision highlights the problem of enforcing different copyright levies within the EU when buying storage products.
France imposes the highest copyright levy on MP3 players of any country in the EU. These make an iPod €40 more expensive in France than in Luxembourg, which has no levy. French consumers tend to buy MP3 players and blank CDs online from Luxembourg or other countries with low levies.
A recent survey estimated that only 6% of consumers buy their blank CDs in France.
In 2005, French e-commerce firm RueDuCommerce brought a case against nine different companies based in Luxembourg, Germany and the UK. A commercial court in Paris ruled in favour of RueDuCommerce, but that decision was overturned on appeal. On November 27 the Court of Cassation ruled that it is illegal to sell the products without a copyright levy.
The Court’s decision states that it is unfair of foreign companies not to inform French consumers that they have to pay the copyright levy on any storage products that they import.
“If one follows the direction shown by the French Court of Cassation, it can mean that if a foreign website wants to sell in France, it has to play by the local rules,” said Cédric Manara, a French law professor.
But Manara pointed out that the decision will not mark a big change because the Court did not demand that sellers in countries such as Luxembourg should themselves add the levy. This means that the problem of different EU countries charging different levies remains.
RueDuCommerce reportedly wanted the case to go to the European Court of Justice, but it has not been referred.
