That is what is recommended for gîte owners, but since I have zero tech interest and knowledge I can’t be bothered. The risk is small, and hassle facture for me is high. Same with SACAM. Different if one has a pro-Siret number perhaps, and multiple gîtes.
Yet you say
It seems the risk is actually a certainty.
Difference between the gîte in France and rental unit in the UK. Some providers have some automatic system to pick up downloads of copyrighted material in the UK.
@Ricepudding I would say providing a domestic-level set of equipment such as a TV, a DVD player, a record player in a gjte plus a modest access to content consistent with a reasonable provision to domestic guests should at most be considered an ‘invitation to treat’-type thing, and not diffusion (which strictly speaking means broadcast or distribution).
If the guest in the gîte chooses to use then my view is he is using domestic things made available to a guest within the household.
@KarenLot Copyright law in the EU, and more generally, worldwide, isn’t really heading in “an invitation to treat” direction, absent any legal definition of what that might even mean. Exceptions to unauthorised use of copyrights are few and far between, and even those that do exist seem to be under constant threat. The major copyright holders have made sure, and continue to do so, that they are being heard in various parliaments and at the EU Commission level, and the Commission is appears to have sided with them in many respects. Meanwhile, the EUCJ is still picking its way through the mess it created when it first started interpreting the directives and regulations, trying to bring ever more “creative” reasonings to support its initial findings.
In this particular instance we are talking about France, and the application of the Intellectual Property Code. Roman law-based courts such as those in France have a hard time with notions of equity - either an exception is provided by the law, or it isn’t, and this is what has served the majority of court reasonings thus far. If it can be seen to be unfair, then generally speaking, it is the legislator’s problem to resolve, and not the court’s. From an anglo-saxon perspective, this can seem very strange, almost too formalistic, with little wiggle room for court appreciation and precedent - as a practitioner in the field of French intellectual property for more than 20 years, I still find it odd why many French courts fail to address some of the glaring questions which seem to come up in these cases, and which could do with a healthy reasoned opinion or obiter dictum from the judges, but the fact is that many French judges in IP matters will shy away from opining on anything that might cause the case to be referred back to them from the court of appeal, or dare I say it, from the supreme court, for failure to have applied the law correctly or given correct legal basis to their decision.
From a practical viewpoint, paying 200-odd Euros a year is a lot less hassle and certainly a significant sight cheaper for the client than hiring someone like me and a litigation team to attempt to carve out some kind of judicial exception handed down from a French court that may or may not be followed up on by later court decisions.
When I start hearing of small gîte owners being fined by SACEM I will take notice. Until then I will relax. Has anyone found a case precedent for a gîte? (I have read some for hotels)
Since SACAM can’t enter the gîte without our permission (or a court order) finding evidence is not obvious.
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Thanks RicePudding. I had worked out that you are a practitioner in the field of intellectual property, but had completely missed the fact that this is French law and therefore different.
In fact I’m going to read your comments another time and think more about them this evening. As what you’ve said, e.g. about notions of equity, seems to explain a lot about the way things are done in France on a day to day basis where clearly the starting mindset is so different.
Thank you for this.
Fun factoid : French courts have only fairly recently, in their legal history, started to include a mention on equity in their orders for awards of costs (i.e. procedural costs under Art. 700 NCPC), and if there is any mention at all, it is usually summed in a 2-line sentence.
When I first started working in private practice, the word “équité” was pretty much banned from French court decisions, so there has been some progress 
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Well it appears from this link that at least some (or all ?) of the agents of the SACEM are “assermentés” by decree and after having sworn an oath before the competent court where they reside, and can therefore be considered equivalent to “un agent ou à un officier de police judiciaire”. In that case, they can indeed enter private premises without necessarily even having to declare who they are, if it is done in pursuit of their mission (which it almost always inevitably is).
[TGI Saint-Brieuc du 6-9-2007](https://TGI Saint-Brieuc du 6-9-2007)
Further to that, the more recent decision from 2021 by the Court of Appeal of Versailles (15/06/2021) confirming that an agent assermenté de la SACEM n’est pas un auxiliaire de justice (i.e. not something like a bailiff), and that they have the right to enter private buildings without declaring who they are:
Il résulte des procès-verbaux précédemment visés, qui ne sont pas valablement contestés, la cour faisant sienne la motivation du jugement en réponse aux moyens développés par l’appelante devant les premiers juges, sur le fait que l’agent assermenté n’a pas à se présenter lorsqu’il pénètre dans les lieux et que cette circonstance ne constitue pas une déloyauté de sa part mais est au contraire nécessaire à l’efficacité de sa mission de constatation. Il ne peut non plus être reproché aux agents assermentés de limiter leurs constatations aux éléments de preuve strictement nécessaires à la SACEM puisque leur mission, précisée par l’article L 331-2 du code de la propriété intellectuelle dispose que la preuve de la matérialité des actes de contrefaçon ou d’inexécution du contrat général de représentation peut résulter des constatations des agents assermentés de la SACEM, qui valent jusqu’à preuve contraire
It is quite scary how many people in France have the right of entry. However SACEM can’t do so when gîte is rented apparently, so only between clients.
I also think it won’t be long before proving this sort of kit is a thing of the past, as all many people now want is a wifi connection and a projector. It’s not that long since it was fairly obligatory to provide an iPod dock 
Agree, not sure about France but music on hold is also covered by legislation in certain European countries, in the UK the law is the same as you have said, basically any form of music provided by the “owner” available to the public is covered, any devices provided by the public for their use is not!
As an aside, watch out for registration for copyright of materials used for public viewing, that’s a whole new ball game!
Wife and I were discussing this very point with regard to the spare rooms we have (which we don’ t rent out, but were considering it). One of the rooms has a TV connected to a separate satellite dish, but most of our friends who have stayed over are only ever interested in the internet connection details, so having a TV, other than for larger screen viewing/casting from a phone / tablet, seems a little pointless.
Phone “hold” music is also subject to verification by, and payment to the SACEM. In a previous firm, my partner mentioned in passing one day that we had received a slightly sarcastic call from the SACEM telling us that they “were certain that it was a mere oversight on our part that the hold music she’d just been listening too didn’t appear to have been declared…”.
Similarly, but unrelated to the SACEM, there was a campaign a few years ago by the BSA (Business Software Alliance) to send out circulars requesting that businesses fill in the details of all software used on the premises of a business establishment, including the number of seats / version numbers / licence keys. Needless to say, we spent quite a lot of time on the phone fielding questions from worried clients.
I’m not sure they ever had the right to demand the info so TTFO would be the appropriate response.
in any case my answer would be:
Redhat Linux
Libre Office
Firefox
…
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In France, they have a number of court validated approaches, ranging from simple information circulars, to writs of summons:
When we got one ourselves, it was easy - the whole office bar 2 Macbooks was running on Linux workstations, OpenOffice.org, and OSS software. The Macbooks each ran a registered copy of MSOffice, and Filemaker Pro, and that was it.
Of course, moving to an online licensing model has probably had a positive impact for most of the large software editors in terms of piracy. I’m trying to find some recent stats for France, as all I can see with a quick search is some stuff from the BSA in 2018 claiming that still 34% of French businesses were using pirated / undeclared software.
I always felt the BSA were just a set of bullies put together by M$ to strong-arm businesses into over-buying licences “to be on the safe side” - as if M$ volume licencing wasn’t complex enough.
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I’ve just gone through completing their questionnaire “on behalf of Adobe”. Luckily in our case we have relatively few users that have anything more than Acrobat Reader, so it wasn’t too taxing. I had planned on ignoring it but got overruled by our Head of Legal who seemed to think there’s a clause in the EULA that covers them performing such audits.
@RicePudding, the move to online licensing actually made it easier for us as end users too. I just logged in, took a screenshot and submitted that as evidence. They seemed happy with that, plus an attestation that we weren’t using anything else not accounted for.
From just looking briefly at one Adobe EULA (for example, CS6), your Head of Legal is correct. It would not be surprising to find that same clause in their other EULAs.
However the legal enforceability of (at least some) EULAs is questionable - certainly for individuals, probably no so much for corporates (the disadvantage of having lawyers on staff is that you loose the excuse that your contract terms were unfair).