TerraLex Cross-Border Guide to Cross-Border Copyright Guide

The main source of copyright law in Poland is the Act of February 4th, 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights. There are some further legal acts concerning copyright e.g. Act of June 15th, 2018 on collective management of copyright and related rights.

Poland has also signed Berne Convention on the protection of literary and artistic works and TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights – annex to the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization.)

The subject-matter of a copyright is any manifestation of creative activity of an individual nature, established in any form, regardless of its value, purpose and form of expression (work). The subject-matter of a copyright includes in particular:

1. works expressed in words, mathematical symbols and graphic signs (literary, journalistic, scientific and cartographic works and computer programs);
2. fine art works;
3. photographic works;
4. stringed musical instruments;
5. industrial design works;
6. architectural, urban architecture and town planning works;
7. musical works with or without words;
8. stage works, stage and musical works and pantomime and choreographic works;
9. audiovisual works (including films).

Protection may apply only to the mode of expression - it does not extend to any discovery, idea, procedure, method or principle of operation, or mathematical concept. A work is protected by copyright from the moment it comes into being, even if in an incomplete form. An author is entitled to protection regardless of any formalities having been met.

The work is any manifestation of creative activity of an individual nature, determined in any form, regardless of the value, purpose and method of expression. To be legally protected, a work must meet certain criteria:

• originality and individuality: the work must be unique and reflect the creator's personal contribution;
• fixed in any form: the work must be fixed in some form, such as written down on paper, recorded on a sound medium, or as a computer file;
• protection of form, not idea: copyright protection covers only the way in which the work is expressed, not its content, idea, or concept.

A rightholder has moral and economic rights to his work.

Unless the Law provides otherwise, author’s moral rights protect the author’s bond with the work which is indefinite in duration and which may not be waived or transferred, and especially the right:

1. to claim authorship;
2. to be identified on the work by his/her name or pseudonym or to make the work available anonymously;
3. to integrity of the form and content of his/her work and to the fair use of the work;
4. to decide whether and how the work is made available to the public for the first time;
5. to supervise how the work is used.

The author has also the exclusive right to use and to dispose of a work in all forms of exploitation and to royalties for use of the work.

A rightholder whose author’s economic rights have been infringed may request the infringer:

1. to cease the infringement;
2. to cure the effects of the infringement;
3. to redress any damage caused: a) on general terms, or b) by paying double or, where the infringement is intentional, triple the amount of the relevant royalty that would at the time it is claimed have been due for the rightholder authorising the use of the work;
4. to hand over any benefits obtained.

Yes. Author’s moral rights protect the author’s bond with the work which is indefinite in duration and which may not be waived or transferred, and especially the right:

1. to claim authorship;
2. to be identified on the work by his/her name or pseudonym or to make the work available anonymously;
3. to integrity of the form and content of his/her work and to the fair use of the work;
4. to decide whether and how the work is made available to the public for the first time;
5. to supervise how the work is used.

Subject to the exceptions, author’s economic rights last for the entire life of the author and expire seventy years:

1. after the author’s death, and in the case of joint authorship, after the death of the last surviving co-author;
2. in the case of anonymous works - after the work is first distributed unless the pseudonym adopted by the author leaves no doubt as to his/her identity or if the author has disclosed his/her identity;
3. in the case of a work in which the author’s economic rights are vested by force of the law in a person other than the author - after the work is first distributed, and if the work has not been distributed - from the date of its arrangement;
4. in the case of an audiovisual work - after the death of the last of the following persons: the principal director, the author of the screenplay, the author of the dialogue, and the composer of the music composed for the audiovisual work;
5. in the case of a musical literary work, if the literary work and the musical work were created especially for a given musical literary work - from the death of the person who died later: the author of the literary work or the composer of the musical work.

The term of author’s economic rights is counted in full years following the year of the event which sets the terms.

For an indefinite amount of time.

contract, the employer whose employee created the work as a result of performing duties under an employment relationship, acquires the property rights upon the acceptance of the work within the limits resulting from the purpose of the employment contract and the mutual intention of the parties

Yes. Co-authors are co-owners of a copyright. Their shares in the copyright are presumed to be equal.

Each of the co-authors may request that a court determine his/her share based on his/her creative work contribution.

Each co-author may exercise the copyright in his/her autonomous part of the work without prejudice to the rights of the other co-authors.

Exercising the copyright in the whole work requires the consent of all the co-authors. In the absence of such consent, each co-author may request a decision from a court, which will take into account the interests of all the co-authors.

Each co-author may pursue claims for infringement of copyright in the whole work. All co-authors will share the compensation received in proportion to their shares.

No. There is no such possibility in Poland. There is no copyright register in Poland.

Author’s economic rights may be transferred to other persons by inheritance or by contract.

The acquirer of author’s economic rights may transfer them to other persons unless a contract provides otherwise. A contract on the transfer of author’s economic rights or a contract on the use of a work, covers the forms of exploitation expressly specified therein.

A contract is invalid in the part concerning all the works or all the works of a specific type by the same author to be created in the future. A contract may concern only those forms of exploitation which are known at the time the contract is concluded.

When new ways of exploitation are created, the author of a work used or incorporated in an audiovisual work or a work being part of a collective work may not without good reason refuse to permit the work to be used as part of the audiovisual work or collective work in forms of exploitation which are unknown at the time the contract is concluded.

A contract transferring author’s economic rights must be made in writing, otherwise, it will be null and void.

No, there is no such possibility in the Polish legal system.

The main act that constitutes infringement of copyright law in Poland is the Act on Copyright and Related Rights (of 4 February 1994). Direct copyright infringement includes actions involving: copying, distributing, adapting, publicly performing, exhibiting, introducing into circulation a work without the author's consent, and appropriating someone else's authorship.

The main act that constitutes infringement of copyright law in Poland is the Act on Copyright and Related Rights (of 4 February 1994). Indirect copyright infringement occurs when someone does not directly copy a work, but makes it possible for others to infringe copyright. This can include providing tools or services that enable copying and distributing protected material without the author's consent.

A work already distributed may be used free of charge for private or personal use without the author’s permission. The author’s permission is not required for transitional or incidental temporary reproduction of works, which has no independent economic significance and is an integral and indispensable part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable:

1. a work to be transmitted by an intermediary in an information and communications system between third parties; or
2. a work to be used lawfully.

There are also some exceptions, i.e.:

1. It is permitted to use, to the extent justified by the purpose of the information, political speeches and speeches given in public debates and also fragments of public speeches, lectures and sermons;
2. Educational establishments, universities and scientific units may for the purpose of illustrating content provided for the purpose of teaching or in order to carry out scientific research, use the originals or translations of distributed works and reproduce for the same purpose distributed minor works or fragments of larger works;
3. It is permitted for teaching and scientific purposes to include distributed minor works or fragments of larger works in textbooks, extracts and anthologies;
4. It is permitted to quote, in works constituting an independent whole, parts of works which have already been published, fine art works which have already been published, photographic works or minor works in full, to the extent justified by the purpose of the quote, such as explanations, discussions, critical or scientific analyses, teaching or rules governing a specific type of creative activity;
5. It is permitted to use works for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche, to the extent justified by rules governing a specific type of creative activity.

There is no legal regulation that would describe this situation, however it should be assumed that providing a hyperlink to content that is freely available on the internet is permissible. However, if the hyperlink circumvents technical measures designed to restrict access to the content, it may be considered as an infringement.

A licensee under an exclusive licence may pursue claims for infringement of author’s economic rights within the scope covered by the licence contract.

A rightholder whose author’s economic rights have been infringed may request the infringer:

1. to cease the infringement;
2. to cure the effects of the infringement;
3. to redress any damage caused: a) on general terms, or b) by paying double or, where the infringement is intentional, triple the amount of the relevant royalty that would at the time it is claimed have been due for the rightholder authorising the use of the work;
4. to hand over any benefits obtained.

These claims may be pursued through interim injunction or bringing an action.

There are no such regulations. General rules apply.

Copyright infringement is a criminal act when a person:

1. usurps the authorship or misleads others as to the authorship of a whole or a part of another person’s work or another person’s artistic performance;
2. without authorization or against its terms and conditions, disseminates someone else’s work, artistic performance, phonogram, videogram or broadcast in the original or derivative version;
3. without authorization or against its conditions and for the purposes of dissemination, fixes or reproduces someone else’s work in the original or derivative version, artistic performance, phonogram, videogram or broadcast;
4. in order to gain material benefit purchases, assists in the transfer of, accepts or assists in concealing objects being carriers of a work, artistic performance, phonogram, videogram disseminated or reproduced without authorization or against its conditions;
5. manufactures any equipment or components thereof designated for illegal removal or circumvention of effective technological protection measures preventing from presentation, recording or reproducing works or objects of neighbouring rights, or trades in such equipment or components thereof or advertises them for sale or rental;
6. prevents or hinders the exercise of a right to control the use of a work, artistic performance, a phonogram or a videogram.

In general, the limitation period in cases of copyright infringement is 3 years from the time when the party learned about the damage and about the person obliged to repair it. At the same time, the limitation period may not be longer than 10 years from the date of the infringement.

The general rule in the Polish legal system is that the unsuccessful party pays the statutory attorneys’ fees and disbursements of the successful party and court costs. This concerns also copyright.

District courts have jurisdiction in matters of copyright, regardless of the amount of the claim.

A copyright holder may request detention and seizure of infringing copies by the Customs authorities. There is also a possibility of initiate criminal proceedings in case of infringements which are criminal acts as well.

There are not any agency bodies that actively enforce or promote copyright.

There are 12 collective management organizations in Poland:

1. Association of Collective Management of Copyright of Artists of Scientific and Technical Works KOPIPOL;
2. Association of Journalists and Publishers REPROPOL;
3. Association of Authors and Publishers SAiW Copyright Polska;
4. Association of Performers SAWP;
5. Polish Filmmakers Association SFP;
6. Association of Folk Artists STL;
7. Association of Performing Artists STOART;
8. Association of Authors ZAiKS;
9. Association of Polish Stage Artists ZASP;
10. Association of Polish Art Photographers ZPAF;
11. Association of Polish Artists ZPAP;
12. Union of Audio Video Producers ZPAV.

Royalties (levies) are the remuneration due to the author for using his/her work. The author has the right to remuneration for the use of works in every field of use. This means that the artist is entitled to a separate remuneration for using his/her works, e.g. on the radio, television, the Internet, at a disco or concert. Royalties are paid by entities that use someone else's creativity (users).

Since July 1, 2020, specialized court divisions for intellectual property have been operating in Poland. New divisions were established in the 5 largest judicial districts in Poland. The purpose of establishing these divisions was to gather judges with specialist knowledge in the field of intellectual property, which was to improve the quality and efficiency of handling cases related to copyright, patents, trademarks, industrial designs and other aspects of intellectual property.

An amendment to the Copyright Act has been in force in Poland since 20 September 2024. The new provisions concern, among other: royalties for audiovisual creators for making their works available online and re-broadcasting in cable networks, as well as the inalienable right to remuneration for other creators from the Internet. The amendment to the Copyright Act also introduced changes in the scope of using works for teaching and scientific purposes, increasing the permitted scope of citation.

In 2026, significant changes to copyright law are planned in Poland. The amendment aims to implement EU regulations, including Directive 2019/789 (the so-called "Satellite and Cable Directive") and Directive 2019/790 (the so-called "Digital Single Market Directive") into the Polish legal system.

The main changes will include:

• Transparency of contracts and fair remuneration: The new regulations are to improve the negotiating position of creators vis-à-vis publishers and producers, ensuring fairer and more transparent conditions for remuneration for the use of their works;
• Works not available in commerce: Introduction of provisions on the fair use of works that are not available in commerce;
• Right to withdraw from the contract: Creators will have the right to withdraw from the contract in certain situations.

The Polish Copyright Act lists as neighbouring rights: - 1) rights to artistic performances;

• 2) rights to phonograms and videograms;
• 3. broadcasting rights;
• 4. rights to first editions;
• 5. rights to scientific and critical publications.

Neighbouring rights are time-limited. They expire essentially after: - 1) 50 years from: - a) artistic performance arrangements (after 50 years following the year in which performance was first determined), - b) preparing a phonogram or videogram (after 50 years following the year in which it was drawn up), - c) the first broadcast of the program (after 50 years following the year in which the first broadcast of the program took place);

• 2) 30 years from the publication of the scientific and critical edition (from its date);
• 3. 25 years from the first publication or distribution (from its date).