A favourable judgment of the Court of Appeal

The judgment of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw (VII Commercial and Intellectual Property Division) dismissed in its entirety the suit brought by the – now former – collective copyright management organization („CMO“) against the Firm’s Client – another collective copyright management organization.

The Plaintiff claimed in total the payment of nearly PLN 2,500,000 as a part of remuneration collected by the Firm’s Client from manufacturers, importers and reprographic undertakings on the basis of provisions of articles 20 and 20¹ of the copyright and related rights law, and allegedly not paid to the Plaintiff in the proper amount.

The Court of Appeal fully accepted the Firm’s argument that the loss of the CMO status in the course of the proceedings (which resulted from the withdrawal of the Plaintiff’s collective management license by the Minister of Culture) resulted in Plaintiff’s loss of its legal standing (capacity to sue) and that it was irrelevant when the alleged receivables became due (before or after this loss).

Irrespective of this, the Court of Appeal, like the Regional Court, shared the Firm’s view that the statistical surveys on the share of works represented by CMO in the total of copied works, carried out on behalf of the Firm’s Client by one of the Market and Public Opinion Research Institutes for the last several years, were correct. Therefore no underpayment to the Plaintiff arose.

File number: VII AGa 60/21