CJEU relaxes French joinder rules for copyright claims over collaborative work

The Court of Justice of the EU, in a judgment of 18 December 2025 (No. C‑182/24), examined the French rule under which all co‑authors or their assignees must normally be joined to proceedings concerning a collaborative work, as required by Article L.113‑3 of the French Intellectual Property Code.

The CJEU clarified that a French court may set aside such requirement where there are objective, serious and persistent difficulties in identifying or locating all co‑authors or their assignees, and where assigning all co-authors and/or their assignees would make the action “practically impossible” and deprive claimants of their fundamental right of effective access to a court. This was the case here, where it proved impossible to identify all heirs of the two co‑authors of 14 films produced between 1967 and 1974.

Why it matters: For older collaborative works, particularly films and other audiovisual content with multiple co‑authors and heirs, French courts must now balance collective management rules with the EU‑level guarantee of effective judicial protection. This should make infringement actions more feasible where full joinder of all co‑authors is not realistically achievable.