CJEU Case C-182/24 / Judgment

RB, en qualité d’ayant droit de Claude Chabrol and Others v Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) and Others
Deciding body type
Court of Justice of the European Union
Deciding body
Court (First Chamber)
Typ
Decision
Decision date
18/12/2025
ECLI (European case law identifier)
ECLI:EU:C:2025:979
  • CJEU Case C-182/24 / Judgment

    Key facts of the case:

    Reference for a preliminary ruling – Intellectual property – Copyright and related rights – Directive 2001/29/EC – Articles 2 to 4 and 8 – Directive 2004/48/EC – Articles 1 to 3 – Directive 2006/115/EC – Directive 2006/116/EC – Articles 1, 2 and 9 – Articles 17 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Remedies – Right to an effective remedy – National legislation under which the admissibility of an action for infringement brought by one of the joint holders of the copyright in a cinematographic work is conditional on all the joint holders of that copyright being called on to participate in the proceedings

    Outcome of the case:

    On those grounds, the Court (First Chamber) hereby rules:

    Article 8 of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society, Article 3 of Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights and Article 1 of Directive 2006/116/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights, read in conjunction with Articles 17 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,

    must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which the admissibility of an action for infringement of the copyright in a collective work is conditional on all the joint holders of that copyright being called on to participate in the proceedings, provided that the interpretation and application of that legislation do not render the procedure provided for unnecessarily complicated or costly and that that procedure does not render it impossible or excessively difficult for that action to be brought by only one or some of the co-authors. The national court must, in any event, guarantee respect for the right to effective judicial protection enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

  • Paragraphs referring to EU Charter

    46. In those circumstances, it must be found that, by its questions, which it is appropriate to examine together, the referring court is asking, in essence, whether Article 8 of Directive 2001/29, Article 3 of Directive 2004/48 and Article 1 of Directive 2006/116, read in conjunction with Articles 17 and 47 of the Charter, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation under which the admissibility of an action for infringement of the copyright in a collective work is conditional on all the joint holders of that copyright being called on to participate in the proceedings.

    ...

    60. Moreover, those procedural rules must, in any event, comply with the requirements that flow from the Charter, in particular from Article 17, on the right to property, and from Article 47, enshrining the right to an effective remedy.

    ...

    62. In the light of the requirements recalled in paragraphs 58 to 60 of the present judgment, it is necessary to ascertain whether, in those circumstances, the procedure at issue is unnecessarily complicated or costly, and whether it may be contrary to the principles of equivalence and effectiveness and to the requirements flowing from Articles 17 and 47 of the Charter.

    ...

    67. Third, it should also be determined whether such a situation may infringe the rights enshrined in Articles 17 and 47 of the Charter, which concern the right to property and the right to an effective remedy respectively.

    68. In that regard, it should be pointed out that, under Article 17(1) of the Charter, ‘everyone has the right to own, use, dispose of and bequeath his or her lawfully acquired possessions. No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss. The use of property may be regulated by law in so far as is necessary for the general interest’. Article 17(2) provides that intellectual property is to be protected (judgment of 9 February 2012, Luksan, C‑277/10, EU:C:2012:65, paragraph 68).

    ...

    72. Moreover, it should be recalled that any person whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by EU law have been infringed must be entitled to an effective remedy, as provided for in Article 47 of the Charter. It is clear from the Court’s case-law that the right to an effective remedy may be invoked solely on the basis of Article 47 of the Charter, without there being a need for the content thereof to be made more specific by other provisions of EU law or by provisions of the domestic law of the Member States, the recognition of that right, in a given case, presupposing, as is apparent from the first paragraph of Article 47 of the Charter, that the person invoking that right is relying on rights or freedoms guaranteed by EU law (see, to that effect, judgment of 17 November 2022, Harman International Industries, C‑175/21, EU:C:2022:895, paragraph 32 and the case-law cited).

    73. The Court has held that the essence of the right to an effective remedy enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter includes, among other aspects, the possibility, for the person who holds that right, of accessing a court or tribunal with the power to ensure respect for the rights guaranteed to that person by EU law and, to that end, to consider all the issues of fact and of law that are relevant for resolving the case before it (judgment of 17 November 2022, Harman International Industries, C‑175/21, EU:C:2022:895, paragraph 61 and the case-law cited).

    74. Admittedly, a restriction such as that resulting from the provisions of Article L113‑3 of the Intellectual Property Code protects the rights of absent joint rightholders, affording them sufficient information to enable them to participate or not to participate in the proceedings, which contributes, in particular, to guaranteeing respect for the right to property of those joint rightholders under Article 17 of the Charter and to achieving, in relation to them, the objective referred to in paragraph 56 of the present judgment.

    75. However, it would appear that those provisions have the effect that, despite the efforts made by the applicants in the main proceedings to call on all the joint copyright holders to participate in the proceedings and their diligence in doing so, it has become impossible for their claims to be examined by a court. In such a situation, the obligation to call on all of the joint rightholders to participate in the proceedings, failing which the action concerned will be inadmissible, would appear to prevent those applicants from exercising their own rights. The French Government has accepted in that regard that that obligation could, in certain cases, constitute an unreasonable requirement such as to render it impossible or excessively difficult for the applicants in the main proceedings to exercise the rights conferred by EU law. As the Advocate General stated, in essence, in point 65 of his Opinion, the right of the joint rightholders to protect their copyright must not be made subject to procedural requirements that are impossible or very difficult to comply with, which would amount, in practice, to the neutralisation of that right to protect copyright and would infringe the fundamental right guaranteed in Article 47 of the Charter.

    76. Subject to verification by the referring court, it therefore appears that the interpretation and application of the procedural requirements imposed on the applicants in the main proceedings, in the light of the particular circumstances of the dispute before that court, may be such as to render the procedure concerned unnecessarily complicated and costly and to infringe both the principle of effectiveness and Article 47 of the Charter.

    77. If the referring court were to find that it is not possible to interpret its national law in conformity with EU law, it would be required to ensure, within its jurisdiction, the judicial protection for individuals flowing from Article 47 of the Charter, and to ensure the full effectiveness of that article by disapplying, if need be, the national provisions concerned (see, by analogy, judgment of 25 November 2025, Wojewoda Mazowiecki, C‑713/23, EU:C:2025:917, paragraph 76 and the case-law cited).

    78. In the light of all the foregoing considerations, the answer to the questions referred is that Article 8 of Directive 2001/29, Article 3 of Directive 2004/48 and Article 1 of Directive 2006/116, read in conjunction with Articles 17 and 47 of the Charter, must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which the admissibility of an action for infringement of the copyright in a collective work is conditional on all the joint holders of that copyright being called on to participate in the proceedings, provided that the interpretation and application of that legislation do not render the procedure provided for unnecessarily complicated or costly and that that procedure does not render it impossible or excessively difficult for that action to be brought by only one or some of the co-authors. The national court must, in any event, guarantee respect for the right to effective judicial protection enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter.

  • Paragraphs referring to EU Charter (original language)