(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The French Ministry of Culture has forwarded to the European Commission a draft decree for the application of the right to reply legislation introduced by art. 6 IV of the law on Digital Economy of 21 June 2004 ('Loi pour la confiance dans l'économie numérique' or LCEN) that implemented the EU e-commerce directive.
Basically, art. 6.IV of LCEN foresees that any natural or legal person directly or indirectly named in an online communication service is granted the right to reply on the same service. With this very extended scope, the French legislator has assimilated the online services to the written press regime, a decision which was opposed by French EDRI-member IRIS during the Parliamentary discussion on the LCEN. IRIS proposed to limit the right to reply to circumstances when inaccurate information is provided on the named person, or when his/her reputation or honour has been touched.
If such limitations had been considered, the current French law would have been more in line with European developments on the right to reply. A Council of Europe Recommendation adopted on 15 December 2004, sets the scope of the right to reply to "offering a possibility to react to any information in the media presenting inaccurate facts about (the named person) and which affect his/her personal rights". At the EU level, a recommendation including the right of reply in relation to the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and online information services industry was adopted on 12 December 2006 by the European Parliament. The document proposed by the Council considers again that: "It is appropriate for the right of reply or equivalent remedies to apply to on-line media, and to take into account the specific features of the medium and service concerned." The new Audiovisual Media Services Directive of 2006 also included the right of reply in the new media, the text referring only to the TV-like services on the web.
The French draft decree specifies that this right to reply is granted provided the respective site does not offer the possibility of a direct reply such as forums, chat rooms etc. The law does not cover the right to reply for the general interest or for a third party (except for cases where there is a mandate in this sense).
The request for the right to reply can be addressed in writing preferably by registered letter with acknowledgement to the manager of the respective site, within 3 months from the publication of the article that makes the subject of the request. The 3-months period is necessary for the public to acknowledge the article in question. The webmaster is supposed to place the respective reply on the site within 3 days from the receipt of the request and the reply must be available "under similar conditions as those of the message under discussion and presented as a result of exercising the right to reply". The reply must be accessible at the same place on the site as the initial article and be on-line for as long at the former is.
The application decree includes two debatable provisions. One of them states that the person requesting the right to reply can give this right up in case the webmaster accepts to modify or eliminate the article in cause. This could give the possibility to apply pressure on the websites.
Another questionable provision refers to the format of the reply message. The right to reply is said to have a maximum length that should be equal to the message under discussion not exceeding 200 lines. This can lead to various interpretations on the Internet as the lengths of lines may differ according to the characters or font used.
The EU Member States have to give their opinion on this application decree by mid-June after which the French Minister of Culture will sign the decree or modify it accordingly. In any case, this would happen after the French presidential and legislative elections.
Draft Decree on the right to reply applicable to online public communication
services for the application of item IV of article 6 of law no. 2004-575 of
21 June 2004 (only in French)
http://www.tntlex.com/public/projet_decret_droit_reponse.pdf
Law n 2004-575 of 21 June 2004 for trust in digital economy (only in
French, 22.06.2004)
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/WAspad/UnTexteDeJorf?numjo=ECOX0200175L
IRIS - Analysis of Meryem Marzouki - the Law on electronic economy (LEN)
(only in French, 19.02.2003)
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/len/point-len0203.html#3.3
Council of Europe - Rec(2004)161 of the Committee of Ministers to
member states on the right of reply in the new media environment
(15.12.04)
http://www.coe.int/T/E/Com/press/News/2004/rec(2004)16.asp
Right to Reply: how to exercise it on the Net (only in French, 20.03.07)
http://www.journaldunet.com/juridique/juridique060620.shtml
Internet offers itself a right to reply (only in French, 20.03.07)
http://www.ecrans.fr/spip.php?article997&var_recherche=droit%20de%...
EDRI-gram: New EU recommendation includes the right of reply in the online
media (20.12.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.24/right-of-reply