On March 26, 2024, the 9th Copyright Law Forum, organized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, was held in Warsaw. Representing Kopipol, the Polish collective management organization for scientific and technical authors’ copyright, the law firm’s partner, Dr. Anna-Maria Niżankowska-Horodecka, took part in the Forum.
During her address at the Forum, she presented several demands crucial for the community of scientific and technical authors, concerning necessary amendments to the Polish legal system. The key demand is the expansion of the list of reprographic devices whose producers and importers are obligated to pay levies for permitted private copying. This list has not been updated for over 13 years and therefore does not include devices that are now commonly used for private copying (such as smartphones, laptops, etc.). Another important demand concerns the modification of the right to information claim – a critical legal instrument for the daily operations of collective management organizations. Here, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between the right to obtain information and regulations protecting confidential information (for example, those governing various professional secrets). It is also desirable to add tools allowing collective management organizations to verify the information provided to them (in today’s world, this is often impossible without specialized expertise in IT or finance).
The demands raised by the Forum participants are, according to the organizers, an important voice of the creative community and will be taken into account in legislative work.
