Videolan Reviews

On March 15, 2012, the VideoLAN association sent a request for an opinion on the basis of article L. 331-36 of the French intellectual property code relating to the High Authority's regulation mission in the field of technological protection measures.

The submission of a case before the court concerns the question of how the VideoLAN association can "make available to users a version of the VLC media player software enabling them to play all the discs commonly referred to as "Blu-Ray", and incorporating technological protection measures, in compliance with its statutes and the spirit of the software".

Hadopi proceeded to hear French and foreign players and opened a public consultation from February 6 to 26, 2013 on the general question of whether "technical documentation and programming interfaces" referred to in article L. 331-32 of the French intellectual property code incorporate the keys for decrypting protected content and more generally the necessary secrets.

In its opinion, which can be downloaded below, the High Authority's Board ruled on the decompilation and reverse engineering exceptions claimed by the VideoLAN association, and clarified the nature and conditions of access to the information required for interoperability, which a software publisher could request on the basis of article L. 331-32.