Intellectual Property Law Internet Law IT Law Computer Law

The Polish Supreme Court hold in its judgement that publishing news on Internet website is equivalent to press publishing (act signature IV KK 0174/07, PDF file, in Polish language). The District Court in Słupsk has ruled that the editor of www.gby.pl website (local portal website for the town of Bytów) should register his website as press (act signature VI Ka 409/07). However, accroding to regulations provided in the Polish Act of 26 January 1984 on Press law (Dziennik Ustaw No 5, pos. 24 with later changes), only publishing a daily newspaper or a newspaper requires registration (article 20). My friend Piotr Waglowski started to compile a report of Polish officials who are publishing news on the Internet. This report may be used as the offcial crime notification soon. There is our President Lech Kaczyński and Prime Minister Donald Tusk on the list as well as some Members of the European Parliament (for instance Marek Siwiec - Vice President of the European Parliament). Go get them all Piotr! Dura lex sed lex. Personally, I think we should (i) change the law (ii) educate some judges.

Welch’s is taking out full-page print ads in People magazine this month that give readers a chance to sample its grape juice by licking the ad. The front of the advertisement shows a huge bottle of the juice, while the back has a strip that peels up and off, with text that reads: “For a TASTY fact, remove & LICK.”

Welch’s hopes flavored strips make its ads stand out.

Marketers are excited about the prospects for lickable ads, but also have to deal with the “ick” factor. Since magazines are often passed from reader to reader (think doctors’ offices) there is a good chance that saliva could be left on the ad. Readers are supposed to peel off the entire sticker on the Welch’s ad before licking, says First Flavor, the company that developed the technology used in the ad. If someone doesn’t rip off the whole sticker, First Flavor says, the flap can’t reseal, giving people an easy way to know whether the ad has already been licked.

More details in the article available at www.wsj.com website.

In a short press release published on October 26 2007 in “Czas Świecia” (regional supplement to “Gazeta Wyborcza”) Marek Rydzewski, spokesperson for District Police Headquater in Świecie issued a statement while answering to a students question about legality and responsibility for photocopying books:

- Copying whole textbooks without a permission from persons who have rights to such work (usually those are authors or publishes) is prohibited.

False. I do not want to educate Polish Police but I think I owe my English readers short explanation about Polish copyright (I think the proper term should be Author’s right since Civil law system differs a lot from English and US approach).

Some voices appears that there are legal grounds to introduce restrictions of maximum amount of pages to be allowed to photocopy from one book (…). It seems that such statements are not justifiable. Rules established in art. 23 of the Act of Authors rights. (…) did not introduce any limits for the amount of photocopied text.

J. Barta, R. Markiewicz, Prawo autorskie i prawa pokrewne, Zakamycze 2004, p. 67.
Additionally, Mr Marek Rydzewski said that:

Also, the law does not allow for downloading books in electronic form from the Internet, except for those which are made available for such actions.

False. There is no rule in Polish law that “prohibits” downloading books from the Internet! For all of you who are interested in the original text of this short article here is a scanned file, JPG, 675 KB. I’ll see if they publish corrections. In passing I would like to write my short statement. Myabe it will sound strange for You but I think that photocopying a full book “kills” it somehow.

There were some speculations that Tomasz Lis would become an editor-in-chief of Dziennik newspaper lately. On October 9, the publisher - Axel Springer Polska has ended those rumours and issued a statement that Robert Krasowski (who is a present editor-in-chief) stays at his position. On October 15, Dziennik’s page with an article titled “Rice criticizes Moscow” included verses that if read in order formed offensive sentence. Free translation would be “Screw Tomasz Lis”. The publisher and chief editor issued a formal apology to Tomasz Lis. Full article with a bigger illustration of Dziennik’s page is available at www.gazeta.pl website.

On May 15, 2007, Jerry Falwell died. His name is not as famous in Poland as it is in the USA, where he was a well-known figure. I could compare his statements and opinions to those advocated in Poland by the controversial reverend Tadeusz Rydzyk. The point with Falwell’s death is that it caused www.boingboing.net website to present some “afterthoughts” about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark judgement in the case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (U.S. 1988). I must admit that I have mixed feelings about the judgement itself and conclusions it brought, especially when I read the advertisement published in the Hustler magazine from which it all began.

What is more interesting from the point of view of lawyers specializing in the IP law (copyright and trademarks), the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court did not end the whole legal dispute. The U.S. Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit in the case Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 796 F.2d 1148 (9th Cir. 1986) had to give a judgement regarding the use of Campari’s advertising by Moral Majority, Inc. and Old Time Gospel Hour (both entities related to Jerry Falwell). The Court ruled that it was fair use.

As you may probably guess, that’s not all yet. In the age of the Internet, there must be also a trademark infingement suit and a domain-name dispute. Two years ago there was a judgement in the case Lamparello v. Falwell, 420 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 2005), cert. denided Falwell v. Lamparello, 2006 U.S. LEXIS 2862 (U.S., Apr. 17, 2006). That time Reverend Jerry Falwell lost the suit against the owner of www.fallwell.com domain name and the website hosted at this address.

Ailin Graef is Anshe Chung - owner of the Anshe Chung Studios in the Second Life game. For all of you are not into such issues I recommend to read a brief description at www.wikipedia.org website. Regarding her claim that this game made her millionaire (a real one not virtual) www.cnet.com magazine decided to carry out an interview about this story During the interview which was held in the game’s world, Ailin Graef’s avatar was attacked by a bunch of flying pennises. It was a result of an action done by so-called griefers which are malicious gamers, who per analogiam act like spammers. Some websites published articles about this event, amongst them was also www.boingboing.net. Meanwile Ailin Graef’s husband decided to persuade such websites to remove pictures of this incident. He based their claims on copyright to virtual figure. More details at Steve O’Hear’s blog and in the article at www.news.com website.