One may sometimes get the impression that competition law and consumer protection law can shed new light on any other regulation of a legal system, no matter how well established. An interesting example of this trend has been provided by a recent decision of the Polish Court for the Protection of Competition and Consumers in…
There are many interesting ways one may become a co-author of a copyright work, but in one of its recent decisions the Polish Supreme Court seems to have added a new and quite interesting option. You can namely become a co-author if you delete a few sentences from a scientific article, sentences you believe are…
One of the recent judgements of the Polish Supreme Court provides a good opportunity to review the basic rules applying to copyright contracts in Poland. The Polish copyright law treats copyright contracts in a rather strict and formal way. It specifically states that both assignment and license contracts only cover the co-called fields of exploitation…
The commented decision may at first glance appear to be of limited importance only, but after closer examination it contains two interesting points of more general significance. The basic facts are the following: the plaintiff, a collecting society ZAIKS, brought a claim against two companies demanding payment for selling copies of the film “Rejs” (“Cruise”),…
What is and what is not a copyright work is a question even copyright lawyers find difficult to answer when confronted with subject matter on the verge of the required standard of originality. Polish copyright law has quite a long tradition of setting the threshold rather low, which may encourage frivolous lawsuits forcing courts to…
It is a cliché that collecting societies play a significant role in shaping the practice of copyright contracts, however the fact that it is a cliché does not make it less true. Therefore, legal rules concerning collecting societies are of huge interest for copyright lawyers, especially when they are new and offer an uncharted territory…
