Centrum Cyfrowe is  proud to publish an English version of the  joint proposal  of our Center and ICM UW for a major reform of Polish copyright law. The proposal explores reform in five key areas:

• protection of public domain
• expansion of authors’ freedom
• extension of public domain by public resources
• expansion of users’ rights
• reduction of copyright enforcement.

(Download our proposal as a PDF file)

Aims and scope of this proposal

By formulating these recommendations we aim to play an active role in the ongoing debate on copyright reform in Poland. The issues raised in the proposal address mainly the Polish laws -  however they are in their majority ex-territorial.  Thus we believe that our proposal contributes to the discussion regarding a European reform of copyright laws in the digital environment.

It is our view that Poland and Europe need to re-consider the current copyright system.  This must be done in order to ensure the most free possible circulation of content, while finding at the same time a fair balance between the rights of creators, users and intermediaries.  The solutions applied up to date have focused on enforcement rather than on a creation of an acceptable social agreement with respect to use of copyrighted works.

Join the debate on copyright reform

We continue the work on our proposal by organizing in Poland a series of working sessions with copyright experts and public debates. The proposal has also been published online on a consultation platform, allowing us to collect comments on the proposal. Our goal is to develop the proposal further into a set of specific recommendations for the law makers.

We very much appreciate your input on our proposal. Please send any comments to kontakt@centrumcyfrowe.pl.

Background: copyright reform and the ACTA debate

The current Polish Act on copyright and related rights (Ustawa o prawie autorskim I prawach pokrewnych) has been passed in 1994, with the last major amendment passed in 2000. Since several years, the need for another major reform of the copyright system in Poland has been declared by a range of parties, including NGOs working in the field of digital rights and IPR reform.

In the recent months, Poland was one of the countries where the wave of anti-ACTA protests was the strongest, with protests taking place in over 50 cities and towns across the country – with the largest of them reaching the size of over 15 000 protesters. Alongside them, and unprecedented wave of online protest activity took place, with hundreds of thousands of people expressing their views, mainly through online petitions. Commentators have pointed out that in many places the last such protest took place in 1989, during the fall of Communism.

In response to the protests, the government – initially supportive of the ACTA agreeement – began a process of public debate on the issue, which culminated with a 7 hour long debate at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister on the 6^th of February.

Centrum Cyfrowe has been the first Polish organization to publicly announce its proposal for changes in copyright law, calling on the government to begin a process of copyright reform. Our statement has been presented at a debate organized by the Prime Minister of Poland on the 6^th of February.  The current proposal is based on a general concept of the reform presented at that meeting.

On the 17^th of February, the Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk has declared that Poland will not ratify ACTA, and promised to continue the debate on digital freedoms. Tusk has stated that a new, modern model is needed, one that will “regulate property rights, while at the same time protecting freedoms and the right to anonymity online”.

At the end of March, the Polish Ministry of Administration and Digital Affairs has announced a group of five taskforces formed by the Ministry will work on legislative reforms that are crucial for the growth of digital society in Poland. The first taskforce, dealing with intellectual property law, will be co-chaired by Helena Rymar, the Legal Counsel of Centrum Cyfrowe.

At the same time, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, responsible for copyright law in Poland, has formed its own taskforce of four legal experts, who are currently preparing their own proposal for copyright reform.

On January 19^th (so one day after global Internet protests against US anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA) Polish government finally informed about its plans for ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Officials announced that agreement would be signed on January 26^th during meeting in Tokyo.

Few days before some organizations  (including Centrum Cyfrowe) asked Prime Minister Donald Tusk to reveal government’s position to ACTA.  In the letter the organizations stated their concerns about content and the way the agreement was negotiated.

As a reaction to the government’s announcement, many Poles (mostly, but not only, young people) started to protest against signing of ACTA, firstly on Facebook (“No for ACTA in Poland” fun page gathered over 222.000 “likes”) and from January 24^th on the streets of Polish cities. As a reaction to the online protests administrators of Chancellery of Prime Minister’s official Facebook profile  deleted over 7.000 critical comments posted there by anti-ACTA activists (the official cause was “vulgar and spamming character of the comments”, but as Funpage Trender analysis reveals, only about 1,5% of them contained vulgarities  and over 50% were expressing  pure opposition to ACTA, e.g. “Stop ACTA”, “No to ACTA”.

Some of the organizations gathered in Coalition of Open Education published their position to ACTA. They stated that, ACTA should not be ratified without broad public consultations, clarifying all doubts and concerns about limitation of fundamental rights, creativity and competitiveness.

Skeptical opinions on ACTA were also expressed by Human Rights Defender Irena Lipowicz and Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data Wojciech Wiewiórowski.

Government’s actions generated also illegal forms of protests. From January 22^nd many governmental web pages were attacked and blocked by “Anonymous”, international group of hackers that threatened to continue attacks and reveal stolen secret documents if ACTA is passed.

The situation in Poland had a wide response in foreign media, e.g. BBC News, The Guardian, The Washington Post.

Despite the tense situation, Polish ambassador in Japan signed ACTA on January 26th on behalf of Polish Prime Minister. The protests continue. The Minister of Administration and Digitalization Michał Boni apologized for lack of consultations and promised nationwide discussion before the agreement would be voted on in Sejm.

As showed by study conducted by Centrum Cyfrowe and MillwardBrown SMG/KRC, conflict over ACTA is especially important for young people (under 30 years). 53% of those questioned declared, that the protest against ACTA is so important to them, that they are monitoring current situation and 13% are being personally involved in the protests. 43% of young Poles are afraid that ACTA would restrict freedom of Internet. 30% think that protests are so intense, because Polish government was negotiating the agreement in secrecy.

Some Polish commentators (e.g. Edwin Bendyk) think that as conflict over ACTA concerns mostly its cultural aspects, the massive opposition could be seen as part of the trend from recent years: culture is the sphere where people are most eager to get involved in. Culture is natural glue. Supported by Internet, which helps creating and intensifying social relations, it can build strong social capital. The question is how it would be used in the future. Piotr Bratkowski states that the reason for the protests in Poland (which haven occurred in any other country that is going to sign ACTA) is very low trust of the society to government. “If state receives right to do something, it will definitely use it against people”. Slogan “freedom of Internet” united people from different political and social backgrounds against untrustworthy authorities. Anthropologist Piotr Cichocki thinks, that young people, Internet users, consider ACTA as an attempt to deprive them of part of their identity by calling “piracy” the way they express themselves. Dominika Blachnicka-Ciacek in her article writes that young people, who until recently were not interested in politics, and were living “beside”, in their own, private worlds suddenly realized that government is secretly trying to interfere in their independence. This brought them out on the streets and from “generation beside” change them into “generation against”.

Described situation shows urgent need for reforms in the spirit of open government. Citizens should be more included in legislation processes, government institutions have to work in more transparent manner. Recommendations on how open government paradigm should be introduced in Poland were in detailed described in “The Roadmap for Open Government in Poland” published by Centrum Cyfrowe in summer 2011.

The Government Information Center (CIR) announced yesterday that Igor Ostrowski has been appointed to the position of Deputy Minister, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Administration and the Digital Engagement responsible for matters related to the development of digital society and regulation of digital technologies.

Igor is one of the founders of Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska and in the first year of our existence has worked intensively on projects related to open government, access to public information and data, and the openness of public resources. We are hoping that in his new capacity Igor will continue to deal with these challenges and implement values that our center embodies – such as openness, transparency and engagement through digital technologies.

We are wishing both Igor and the new Ministry, which he will be building, many successes and we are hoping that we can successfully collaborate in building a digital civic society in Poland.

The Polish Council of Ministers adopted today a draft bill amending the Bill on Access to Public Information and certain other laws, submitted by the Minister of Interior and Administration. The draft Bill will now be sent to the Parliament.

The primary objective of the amendment is to introduce into national legislation rules for re-use of public information in line with the EU Directive 2003/98/EC.

The Bill introduces a new method for making public information available for re-use – through content repositories, pro-actively filled with resources by public institutions.  Designated public institutons will provide resources – in particular public data – specified by the Prime Minister, especially information of particular value as a source of innovative added value. Information will also be available through previously defined modes, including online Public Information Bulletins (BIP) and upon request.

As a rule, everyone will have the right to re-use of public information – without restrictions and free of charge, with only basic requirements, such as attribution of source. However, if the preparation of information for re-use will generate additional costs, a payment may be require to offset these costs. For information that is subject of copyright law, licenses will have to be used to provide broad rights of access and re-use.

Igor Ostrowski and Alek Tarkowski, co-founders and members of Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska have been actively involved in drafting this bill.

Official information published by the Government Information Center (in Polish).

On Thursday, 9th of June 2011 the conference “Polish Republic 2.0. Can the government be transparent, engaging and open towards the network society?”, organized by Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska took place at the President’s residence, the Belvedere in Warsaw.

The list of speakers included the President of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski and Minister Michał Boni, Chairman of the Permanent Committee of the Council of Ministers, Head of the Board of Strategic Advisors to the Prime Minister. During the conference attendees were presented with key findings and recommendations of a report entitled: “Roadmap for open government in Poland”, prepared by Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska. A letter written for the occassion by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission and EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda was also presented.

According to the account on the webpage of the President’s Chancellery:

“Speaking at the conference, President Komorowski stressed the importance of deeper citizen engagement in the affairs of the state.

- Without proper knowledge and access to information it is hard to imagine any form of citizen engagement other than engagement against the state, which may include actions to “rip out”  data and sometimes to use it against best interests of the state – said the President.

According to the President,  the process leading to open governement can not only improve the overall effectiveness of the state, but also affect wider citizen participation in the democratic process.

Relating to the term “open government”, President Komorowski stressed the importance of actions on both central and local levels. He also mentioned the necessity of facing the questions dealing with setting the borders to openness and access to information. [...]

Talking about the “Roadmap to open government in Poland”, President Komorowski suggested setting firm deadlines that would serve as practical milestones for public institutions.

Minister Michał Boni, who was the next speaker, said that the government shouldn’t be closing its doors in front of citizens. On the contrary, succesful government takes the opportunity to incorporate citizens’ creativity and energy into decision-making process. He also stressed the importance of opening up public information and stated that:“Efficient and fast information sharing is one of the most important elements of open government”

Minister Boni recalled recent declaration related to public sector information made by Prime Minister Donald Tusk:

“Everything that is public information or is financed from public funds, should be publicly accessible without monetary compensation, also for commercial use. Information prepared by the state and financed from taxpayers’ funds shouldn’t be controlled by the government, as the citizen wants to make use of the information generated with the use of his/her tax money”.

With regard to the report “Roadmap for open government in Poland”, Michał Boni stated: “This report makes us aware of everything positive that open government and open government can bring about: activate energy of the citizens, make more transparent processes of decision- and law-making, and achieve greater efficiency of implemented solutions by utlising ideas gathered collectively in the network society”.

After speeches by President Komorowski and Minister Boni, Igor Ostrowski and Alek Tarkowski presented key points and recommendations of the report “Roadmap for Open Government in Poland”.

Next, a speech was given by Tim Kelsey, senior advisor to the British government on transparency, who presented the open government model for public services that is now being implemented in the United Kingdom.

Summing up the conference, Edwin Bendyk from the “Polityka” weekly described the conference as a milestone moment in ending “analogism” – a condition in which the Polish public administration remains anachronic by not sufficiently enough employing digital technologies.

The report “Roadmap for Open Government in Poland” has been prepared by the team of Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska, with the help of a grant from the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe.

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The program of the conference can be found here. The summary of the „Roadmap for Open Government in Poland” will be made available in English in July.