France will start a subsidy program that stimulates young people to download copyrighted content via legal platforms. Every Frenchman between the age of 12 and 25 years would be offered a total credit of 50 euros with a deposit of 25 euros once a year.

Alarm bells will immediately start ringing with the legal experts among the readers: the EU forbids state aid (Art. 107, paragraph 1 TFEU). But the EU has already given its consent to the new subsidy program: it wouldn't distort competition on the EU's internal market, have a positive impact on the prices of legal content distribution services and promote diversity.

Digital content distribution platforms that want to participate in the subsidy program of the French government have to lower their prices, run longer subscriptions and promote the subsidy program.

The subsidy program for legal downloading is one of the French government's measures to counter illegal downloading of copyrighted content. The controversial Hadopi-law is another example of these measures.

Source: Tweakers