EUPillar V., F. and D. v. Studio canal vidéo and Canal +

Summary

On 12 December 1996, Canal + and Entropie Films entered into an agreement to co-produce 30 sketches of about 30 minutes, to be broadcast on the Canal + channel. The contract provides that Entropie Films will draw up the necessary agreements with the different co-authors and neighbouring rights holders. A budget of 60,000 BEF is provided for original music. The appellants are the authors of musical excerpts used on the soundtrack of the film. They are members of Sabam (the Belgian association of authors, composers and editors). On 8 December 1997, the defendants decide to produce 10 more sketches. The budget for the music amounts to 15,000 BEF. On 17 July 2003, the defendants decide to confide the DVD release of the sketches to a company called Studio canal vidéo, which will directly give a remuneration to the authors and director of the sketches. On 18 and 20 February 2004, the counsels of the appellants write to Studio canal vidéo stating that the appellants only authorised the broadcasting of their work on Canal + and did not agree to assign their rights for a release on DVD. Studio canal vidéo refers the appellants’ objections to Entropie Film. The latter says it will verify the contracts, but later fails to answer the objections of the appellants. The appellants sue Studio canal vidéo on 27 July 2004 before the President of the Court of First Instance of Brussels, seeking an injunction against the further distribution of the DVDs. Canal + voluntarily joins the proceedings and forces Entropie Film to intervene in warranty. The first judge accepted his jurisdiction, but dismissed the appellants’ claim because they lacked standing, since they had assigned their rights to Sabam. DECISION OF THE COURT The Court of Appeal examines its jurisdiction pursuant to Art. 5(3) Brussels I, which stipulates that in matters relating to tort, a person domiciled in a Member State may be sued in another Member State in the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur. The expression “place where the harmful event occurred” must be understood as being intended to cover both the place where the damage occurred and the place of the event giving rise to it so that the claimant has a choice as to where to introduce proceedings. However, Art. 5(3) must not be interpreted so extensively that it undermines the general rule of Art. 2. The term does not, on a proper interpretation, cover the place where the victim claims to have suffered indirect damage following upon initial damage arising and suffered by him in another Contracting State. In the case at hand, the defendants made their agreement in Paris. The initial television broadcast as well as the DVD released were addressed to France. The fact that one DVD was offered for sale in a Carrefour supermarket in Belgium does not in itself justify the jurisdiction of the Belgian courts. The appellants fail to prove that Studio canal vidéo sold that DVD to Carrefour so that the copyright infringement attributed to it took place in Belgium. Otherwise, the Court is allowed to assume that the DVD might have been sold to Carrefour by a distributor, especially a Belgian distributor, and that the latter can rely on the rule of exhaustion. Moreover, the appellants’ request as described in their conclusions is not limited to the damage caused in Belgium. Belgium is only one place, among others, where the appellants could have suffered harm, but only in France the harmful event has caused its initial damage.