The Supreme Court in its judgment of 27 February 2009, case file V CSK 337/08 ruled that the specification of essential terms of the contract as defined by the public procurement system can be deemed as copyrighted work.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court.
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“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 2 ARNR | co-autorship | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | derivative work | joint work | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court | threshold of creativity.
In a short press release published on 26 October 2007 in “Czas Świecia” (regional supplement to Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper) Marek Rydzewski, the spokesperson for Regional Police Headquater in Świecie, issued a statement while answering to a student’s 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.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 23 ARNR | copyright law | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish law | press law.
The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 29 June 2007, case file VI ACa 210/07, published in the electronic database Legalis, held that photographs that were taken when a movie was shoot do not need to be treated as derivative works of an audiovisual work (the movie).
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 2 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | derivative work | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Appeallate Court.
Sergiusz Pawłowicz who was also the leading programmer of Janosik project, went the same administrative proceedings as ISOC Poland. See “Access to public information, case OSK 600/04“. At the final stage the Supreme Administrative Court rejected Sergiusz’s complaint on the decision of the Voivodeship Administrative Court case file II SAB/Wr 72/02, recognizing that the proper course shall be a civil action.
Sergiusz filed a complaint requesting the civil court to order ZUS to disclose specification of KSI MAIL protocol being public information. The Regional Court in Warszawa in its judgment of 8 December 2006 case file XVI C942/04 ruled that publication of the protocol that is used by Płatnik software will not affect in any way the integrity of safety of data sent by this software. Therefore all arguments raised by ZUS with regard to data security were unfounded. The Court also held that ZUS did not prove that the protocol of KSI MAIL is protected by copyrights that belongs to Prokom Software S.A. or whether Prokom received any patent covering this protocol.
As for the argument that ZUS’s obligations regarding confidentiality of information about technologies used in Płatnik and its source code, which resulted from the agreement between ZUS and Prokom, the court held that according to the obligation to disclose public information included in article 13 of the Act on the Informatization of Activities Undertaken by Entities Fulfilling Public Tasks (in Polish: ustawa o informatyzacji działalności podmiotów realizujących zadania publiczne), the provision of the agreement as a ius dispositivum, may not impose negative consequences on Sergiusz.
The court also held that the use of the requested public information and legal interest that Sergiusz and its legal representative derrived from the social interest was beyond the scope of the whole dispute. Simply, there is no need to prove legal interest when requesting the access to public information.
ZUS filed an appeal complaint. The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 23 April 2007 case file V Ca 454/07 rejected it. The Court held that the court of first instance provided deep and proper analysis of binding legal norms and its judgment was correctly applied.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 1(1) API | Art. 5(2) API | Art. 75 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | e-law issues | free or libre and open source software | legal regulations on computer networks | Polish Act on access to public information | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Appeallate Court | Polish Regional Court | Polish Supreme Administrative Court | public information | Voivodeship Administrative Court.
The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 14 May 2007, case file I ACa 668/06, published in the Jurisprudence of Appellate Courts (in Polish: Orzecznictwo Sądów Apelacyjnych) of 2008, No 12, item 39, p. 48, held that a trivial and simple language phrase being a short fragment of popular “Baśka” song and not being a citation or borrowed quote, that was included in the disputed advertisement, and at most being an inspiration and a reference to the distant associations, does not justify the assumption of copyright infringement.
The particular freedom concerns the advertising market. Indeed, such activity because of its short forms and the need for articulated skills must operate by abbreviations, references to familiar themes, characters and situations. An advertising is also a trade statement of informational nature, so it enjoys the right to freedom of expression and freedom of information. Restrictions of these rights may occur only to the extent necessary, by third party interests.
While preserving the principle of non-transferability of author’s personal (moral) rights, it is permitted to waive of the exercise of these rights by the creator, to third parties, including entrepreneurs.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 23 ARNR | Art. 29 ARNR | Art. 78 ARNR | Art. 79 ARNR | copyright infringement | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | moral rights | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Appeallate Court | quotation right.
The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 14 March 2006, case file VI ACa 1012/05, published in the Jurisprudence of Appellate Courts (in Polish: Orzecznictwo Sądów Apelacyjnych) of 2007, No 12, item 36, p. 56, held that when it comes the legal protection of the author’s work it does not matter how the infringer came into the possession of the work, or how the work arrived to him, in particular, it does not matter that the work, which is the subject of the infringement came to the infringer as unsolicited correspondence sent electronically, the so-called spam. The protection is not only afforded to the well known creator, whose works are published in big numbers, but to anyone whose rights to a protected work have been infringed in any possible way, copyright law makes no distinctions in the field of protection depending on the value of the work and the recognition enjoyed by the author.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 79 ARNR | case law | copyright infringement | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | legal regulations on computer networks | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Appeallate Court.
The Supreme Court – Civil Chamber in it judgment of 13 January 2006, case file III CSK 40/05, published in the Supreme Court’s Bulletin of 2006, No 3, the “Wokanda” magazine of 2006, No 6, p. 6, the Review of Economic Legislation (in Polish: Przegląd Ustawodawstwa Gospodarczego) of 2006, No 7, p. 32, held that the expression of human intellectual activity which lacks adequate individuating characteristics, i.e. that it would distinguish it from other products of similar nature and purpose, cannot be regarded as a work that is a subject to copyright protection. The dependent copyright may arise if there already is – and simultaneously exists – the right to the “original/primary” work, which was creatively worked out by a person who claims the right to dependent copyright.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 2 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | derivative work | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court in its judgment of 25 January 2006, case file I CK 281/05, published in the Supreme Court’s Bulletin of 2006, No 5, the Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, the Civil Chamber (in Polish: Orzecznictwo Sądu Najwyższego Izba Cywilna) of 2006, No 11, item 186, p. 64, the “Wokanda” magazine of 2006, No 7-8, p. 17, held that the novelty requirement is not the essential feature of the creation process understood as an expression of human intellectual activity. The work within the meaning of article 1 of the Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights, can be a compilation that is using publicly available data, provided that the choice of their segregation and the way of presentation indicates originality.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court in its judgment of 13 January 2006, case file III CSK 40/05, published in electronic database LEX, under the no 176385, held that “creative” and “individual” character of a work entitled for copyright protection can of course be based on the arguments relating to the subjective relationship between the creator and his work (“personal imprint”, “characteristics of personality”), or the objective aspects, i.e. relating to the product of the human mind. In the case of the application of the second test, which must be considered in light of the views of doctrine as better justified, it is assumed that the result of intellectual effort cannot be routine, standard and typical.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 2 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court – Civil Chamber in its judgment of 15 November 2002 case file II CKN 1289/00, published in the Supreme Court’s Bulletin of 2003, No 6, p. 7, the Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, the Civil Chamber (in Polish: Orzecznictwo Sądu Najwyższego Izba Cywilna) of 2004, No 3, item 44, p. 66, held that the development of a grid of entries, and a method how to define the composition of difficult entries (lexemes/lemmas) are the manifestation of creative activity of the authors of the Polish language dictionary within the meaning of article 1 of the Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | copyright infringement | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Court.
The Supreme Administrative Court in a judgment of 13 October 2005, case file FSK 2253/04, published in electronic database LEX, under the no. 173097, ruled that whether a given subject is deemed as a copyrightable work, is not determined by the will of the contracting parties, but by the findings of facts. Created computer programs cannot be considered as copyrighted works, if the activities of their creator do not have the characteristics of originality and individuality.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Administrative Court.
The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 5 July 1995, case file I ACr 453/95, unpublished, held that on the grounds of the copyright law one has to oppose the actions of a creative nature against the technical operation and actions. The result of the latter is verifiable and repeatable, and its accomplishment only requires specific knowledge and efficiency. It is possible to predict a specific result of such actions. The feature of creativity, and thus the work itself, is the individual recognition and uniqueness of the accomplished result, in other words, the objective novelty, originality, autonomous creation, the creator’s personality projection as reflected in the work, whose effect is unpredictable, as the final result of the creative work (at least some elements).
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Appeallate Court.
The Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment of 30 June 1999, case file I SA/Lu 408/98 held that the result of creative activity, original one, characterized by individuality is the protected work. The result of a work which is determined by a described object or phenomenon, complex functions or goals, which is one of the results originating from the possible options that could be reached/solved by people (specialists) making the same task, is not the protected work. The copyright protection does not extend also to creative process, creative method or technique used in creating the work.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Supreme Administrative Court.
The Appellate Court in Warsaw in its judgment of 2 October 1996, case file I ACa 2/96, held that the protection of author’s rights is attributed to the creator of a creative work and can be directed against anyone who infringes on these rights. This is an absolute protection, that is totally independent of whether there existed any contractual relationship between the creator and the infringer. The use of works without permission constitutes an infringement of author’s rights/copyrights.
See also “Polish regulations on copyright” and “Polish case law on copyright“.
Categories: Art. 1 ARNR | Art. 79 ARNR | case law | copyright law | copyrightable subject matter | Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights | Polish Appeallate Court.
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