Polish your IP

Regional Court in Poznań to hear copyright remuneration scales cases

One of the news that Polishyourip heard lately from the Regional Court in Poznań is that  a new seat of the court is currently under construction (and will be ready presumably in 2015). Now it seems that there is also another thing connected with Poznań that we certainly have to  indicate.

From 17 February 2011 the Regional Court in Poznań is competent to decide in cases concerning copyright remuneration scales.

Copyright remuneration scales are ratecards which inform about amounts of money that should be paid to authors (via reproduction rights organizations) for specific uses of copyright protected materials. The remuneration scales are prepared by reproduction rights’ organizations (such as, e.g., ZPAV, Polish Filmmakers Association or ZAiKS). For a long time each of these organizations was the only party to the proceedings for approving the respective remuneration scale. The verdict of The Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 21 January 2006 (SK 40/04) contested this regulation, because the representatives of users of copyrighted materials were not allowed to take part in the proceedings and/or file complaints against the approval of scales.

The current building of the Regional Court in Poznań (source: Wikipedia, author: Radomil) 

The verdict of the Constitutional Tribunal made it necessary to prepare an amendment of the Polish Copyright Act. Currently, deciding on copyright remuneration scales begins with the reproduction rights’ organizations that send their proposal for acceptation to the Copyright Commission (a body consisting of 30 arbiters, chosen by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage among persons proposed by associations of authors, right users, radio and TV organizations and reproduction rights organizations).

With the new regulation the copyright and neighbouring rights’ users may participate in the proceedings as parties.  After a review of the scale’s proposals, the Copyright Commission (actually, a panel delegated by the Commission to decide in certain case) rules whether it accepts the scale or not. In both cases the parties to the proceedings may appeal the decision to the court. And here comes the Regional Court in Poznań – chosen by the Regulation of the Minister of Justice of 3 February 2011 as competent for such issues.

As it has been mentioned in the draft of the Copyright Act amendment, this court shall be treated as a seed of the specialized IP court in Poland. However, watching narrow competence of this court in IP matters it seems that it would rather be a seed of a seed.

 Author: Rafał Kłoczko

If you have any questions on this article contact:  Michał Siciarek

Author: admin