The Supreme Court in a judgment of 10 February 1970, case file I CR 666/69, published in OSP 1972, No. 2, item 30, considered the co-creative contribution of several authors as the essential feature of the joint work, whereby the “co-creativeness” is expressed in an indivisible creation, which is a common and indivisible in terms of creative process that led to its production. The creative work of each of the authors may be in relation to each other in terms of time or as a concurrent, or as the work of each of the contributors following one after the other. According to the court, between such works should occur a relation that each of such work would not individually lead to the creation of an independent work of a particular type.

In this case, the Court called for the exclusion from the definition of a joint work of actions that were based on compiling the work of others in terms of an editorial job, or adding philological, critical or comparative comments, etc.

See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.

Categories: co-autorship | copyright law | joint work | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court.