Monthly report on copyright reform in Poland- July, 2013

Below we are publishing key developments in copyright reform in Poland. July, 2013.
The project is conducted with the support of Open Society Foundations. Most of the links lead to content in Polish.
1. In the middle of July, the Circuit Court in Warsaw ruled in the case of copyright infringement that the owner of a social media profile is responsible for the content contained within. The ruling concerns the case from the the last parliamentary elections in Poland, when one of the candidates poste on his Facebook profile a link to a short video that contained a fragment of a song of the Polish hip-hop group Ascetoholix. The background music was added without the consent of the authors, who sued for copyright infringement. According to the judgement, the politician has to pay the group 17 000 zł (about 4000 euro). The judgment is not final.
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2. On the 15th of July, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage ended a consultation period on the regulation of the Copyright Commission (Komisja Prawa Autorskiego). The Commission is an institution established by the Polish Copyright Law, which approves the remuneration tables for the use of works and related rights and settles disputes between collecting societies. Due to the low efficiency of the Copyright Commission, a number of collecting societies has still not approved their royalties tables. Therefore the Ministry of Culture recognizes the need of changing the rules governing proceedings, in order to speed up and simplify the procedure before the Copyright Commission.
Read our statement (PL)
3. On 10th of July, the Copyright Commission (Komisja Prawa Autorskiego) has approved a common royalty table for the public performance of music and movies that has been prepared by eight collective management organizations. New tables will apply to fees paid by owners of shops, restaurants, hotels, etc. According to the new rules, the amount to be paid depends mainly on the location and surface area of the establishment, except for hotels, where the fee depends on their category. Once the tables are finalized, only two collecting societies will be able to charge a fee on the field of public performance.
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4. In the end of July, a Polish on-line review of public domain content called Szukamy.org has been launched. The project is an initiative of Marcin Wilkowski, an expert on the use of digital technologies in the field of history, and the Gdańsk-based City Culture Institute (IKM). It aims to promote Polish digital resources of libraries, archives and museums and to educate about legal basis of copyright protection.
5. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has published results of a public consultation on the regulations of exceptions and limitations to copyright law and on rules of sharing public domain works by public cultural and educational institutions. The consultation was attended by many public institutions (museums, libraries, archives), foundations and educational institutions. Results of the consultation will be the starting point for the discussion that will take place during the September Copyright Law Forum.