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The Paris Court of Appeal condemned, on June 18, 2021, the French-speaking Belgian radio-television channel RTBF for having used 18 seconds of the Badminton song by the group Astonvilla without authorization to promote the program The Voice Belgique on Facebook. . It must pay € 4,000 in compensation to the authors of the song for infringement of their moral rights and € 10,000 to the producer for his financial damage.
In 2016, RTBF included an excerpt from the song Badminton by the French group Astonvilla in the trailer for the musical show The Voice Belgium and broadcast it on its Facebook page. The songwriters and the group’s production company, who had not given their authorization, sued the RTBF and the program’s production company before the Paris TGI for compensation on the basis of the copyright infringement. The court of appeal ruled that RTBF had infringed the moral rights of the authors and the publisher. First, this broadcast undermines the work because they have not given permission to use an extract from their song to promote a program whose philosophy is very far from their political convictions. On the other hand, the general authorization given to RTBF and Sabam to use Sacem’s repertoire does not include the goal of self-promotion of its programs. Then, the RTBF infringed their paternity rights, failing to have mentioned their name when nothing prevented them from mentioning it on the Facebook page. The court also recognized an infringement of the economic rights of the producer. On the other hand, it considers inadmissible the claims of the authors and the publisher whose action in defense of these rights belongs to Sabam or Sacem.
By a judgment of November 17, 2017, the Paris Court of Appeal concluded that the French courts had jurisdiction to hear a copyright infringement dispute on the Facebook page of The Voice broadcast on television. Belgian. The court of appeal had simply noted that the site was perfectly accessible in France.

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