Polish IP & IT law – copyright trademark computer internet telecomm

Archive for: Art. 23 ARNR

Copyright law, the allowed personal use

November 16th, 2009, Tomasz Rychlicki

Downloading MP3s (or movies, pictures, press articles) is not illegal under the Polish law. According to article 23 of the Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights – ARNR – (in Polish: ustawa o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych) of 4 February 1994, published in Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 24, item 83, consolidated text of 16 May 2006, Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 90, item 631, with subsequent amendments.

Section 3
Lawful Use of Protected Works
Art. 23.-1. It shall be permissible, without the consent of the creator, to make use free of charge, of a work that has already been disclosed. However, this provision shall not authorize the construction of a building based on an architectural work or a work of urban architecture made by another person.
2. Personal use shall extend to use within a circle of persons who are personally related, in particular by blood or marriage, or who entertain social relations.

That was also explicitly said in Rzeczpospolita’s article entitled (this is my loosely translation of course) “Downloading MP3′s files is not a crime“.

No one in Poland will go to prison for downloading music or movies from the Internet. But you can get there for file sharing.

Computer software is protected on different rules. There are proper provisions included in the Criminal Code – CRC – (in Polish: Kodeks Karny) of 6 June 1997, Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 88, item 553, with subsequent amendments.

Chapter XXXV
Offences against Property
Article 278. § 1. Whoever, with the purpose of appropriating, wilfully takes someone else’s movable property shall be subject to the penalty of deprivation of liberty for a term of between 3 months and 5 years.

§ 2. The same punishment shall be imposed on anyone, who without the permission of the authorised person, acquires someone else’s computer software, with the purpose of gaining material benefit.

§ 3. In the event that the act is of a lesser significance, the perpetrator shall be subject to a fine, the penalty of restriction of liberty or the penalty of deprivation of liberty for up to one year.

§ 4. If the theft has been committed to the detriment of a next of kin, the prosecution shall occur upon a motion from the injured person.

§ 5. The provisions of § 1, 3 and 4 shall be applied accordingly to stealing energy or a card enabling the collection of money from a bank automatic cash dispenser [automatic teller machine]

There is also Chapter 14 entitled Criminal Liability in the Polish Act on Authors Rights and Neighbouring Rights – ARNR – (in Polish: ustawa o prawie autorskim i prawach pokrewnych) of 4 February 1994, published in Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 24, item 83, consolidated text of 16 May 2006, Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No 90, item 631 with subsequent amendments.

Copyright law, the allowed personal use

October 29th, 2007, Tomasz Rychlicki

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.

Copyright law, case I ACa 668/06

July 18th, 2007, Tomasz Rychlicki

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.