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Archive for: co-autorship

Copyright law, case II SAB/Łd 53/10

June 11th, 2011, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Voivodeship Administrative Court in Łódź in its judgment of 20 December 2010 case file II SAB/Łd 53/10 ruled that the fact that different authors create questions from different fields of medicine for the National Specialist Examination, and these questions are copyrightable works within the meaning of the Article 1(1) of the Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights, does not exclude the possibility that the Authority could create, on the basis of these works, the examination test that will be used to carry out the National Specialist Examination.

Article 1(1). The subject matter of copyright is any expression of creative activity having individual character and manifested in any material form, regardless of the value, intended purpose and manner of expression thereof (work).

Art. 4. The following shall not be protected by copyright:
(1) normative texts and the drafts thereof,
(2) official documents, documentary material, devices and symbols,

Therefore, the works used for the state examination are deemed as official documents and the unused questions which are known as the “pool of questions” are official documentary materials within the meaning of Article 4(2) of the ARNR.

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

Copyright law, case II CSK 527/10

June 6th, 2011, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Supreme Court in its judgment of 25 May 2011 case file II CSK 527/10 held that a person who made some editorial changes of a scientific work that involved the removal of parts of dubious scientific value is entitled to claim the co-autorship of such a work. See also “Copyright law, case V CK 391/02“

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

Copyright law, case V CK 391/02

July 1st, 2008, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Supreme Court in its judgment of 7 November 2003 case file V CK 391/02, published in OSN 2004, No 12, item 203, ruled that introduction to the work, which was an academic textbook, non-substantive amendments, and changes that were merely stylistic or were made during proofreading, is not a manifestation of creative activity and does not justify the granting of the person who made such amendments, the status of a co-author.

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

Copyright law, case I CR 666/69

January 19th, 2005, Tomasz Rychlicki

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.