1. Themes

Our vision

Our wish is for everyone to have free access to knowledge and culture, alongside freedom of speech and creative expression, with the use of digital technologies. We believe that it can be achieved with appropriate public policies – which is why we actively participate in their development.
We want to see public policies that support the free circulation of content and data and guarantee user rights. They will remain illusory unless we work on the appropriate shape of the whole ecosystem of diverse technologies which create communication channels that are more and more often considered the public sphere.
We participate in legislative processes related to the direction of the development of digitization and technology. We believe that a discussion around this issue cannot be based solely on economic premises – what is equally important is a vision strongly based in a good understanding of the needs of users and sustainable development. Digitization cannot be understood only as a modernization process of simply adding new technologies. It’s a transformation process that has an impact on the society as a whole. We want to make sure that the human aspect of technology is not forgotten in the process of shaping public policy.

Activities

Our everyday activities are international, because the fight for an open internet cannot be limited to one country. Our activities at the European Union level are part of theCOMMUNIA Association. On a global scale, we are an active member of the Creative Commons copyright reform platform.
The main focus of our activities is copyright. We engage in legislation and policies based on the voluntary opening of resources with the use of free licenses, as well as other forms of regulation of content circulation, such as rules on online platform responsibility or regulations regarding the re-use of public sector information. We also care about digital competences, which are necessary for conscious internet use and protecting your rights.
The internet changed the meaning of copyrights by giving users the possibility of mass-sharing content. Publishing and using resources is much easier today than it used to be, but because of unclear and complicated laws, users are uncertain as to whether what they are doing is legal. What has also changed is social expectations: we want an equal and free access to science, culture and education, but those resources are mostly regulated by copyrights. We have been working on copyright reform since 2012 and the debate around the ACTA agreement. Since 2016 we have been particularly involved, as a society representative, in copyright reform on the EU level.
Our advocacy activities also involve the openness of public resources in a wide sense of the term, which allows for the full use of its potential in the economy and in the society. We influence the practical way in which public administration institutions function, initiate action for legislative changes and support the development of open policies. We prepare recommendations for public policy changes and opinions on the activities of various institutions, including the European Commission and the Polish government. We organize workshops and webinars during which we share our knowledge with the public administration and institutions. We believe that anything that was created using public finds should be available to everyone.
While working towards open circulation, we examine other regulations as well – including online platform regulations, issues regarding computer algorithms (which more and more often replace people in decision making) and sharing economy regulations.