Category: law

Modern Poland Foundation is again asking people all over the world about their vision of the future of copyright. There are now 4 days to go before the end of the crowd founding campaign and there are 4 weeks left before the deadline to submit the work for the Future of Copyright Contest.

The Modern Poland Foundation announced the second edition of the contest on the future of copyright law.
Like last year, we invite you to write, sing and record about the visions of the future of copyright law. Also we encourage you to support this project by funding the prizes.
On the contest page you can find the rules for participation in the contest and support the pool of prizes to participants.
The deadline is 1st July 2013. The work must be published under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

The picture attached is a remix based on Leonardo da Vinci’s „Lady with an Ermine” and Johannes Vermeer’s „Girl with a Pearl Earring”, remix by Radek Czajka.

Translation: Paulina Wawer

The consultation on the Open Public Resources Bill carried out by the Ministry of Administration and Digitization has attracted considerable attention from various groups.
Due to a lot of critical opinions, the Ministry has decided to respond to the most frequent complaints that – by the institution itself – are rather interpreted as doubts regarding the Bill. At the same time, the consultation deadline has been extended to February 5.

translation: Monika Szewczyk

On 17 January in Strasbourg, Michał Boni, the Minister of Administration and Digitization, participated in a meeting of the European Parliament working group specializing in personal data protection. With regards to the last year’s protests against ACTA, Mr Boni said: ‘The efficiency and effectiveness of a state depends on a good connection between an intelligent government and rule, and an open government and rule. The former means appropriate and citizen-oriented use of new technologies, the latter (‘open government’) – wider access to information, the right to use and modify this information, adjusting it to their needs’.
Further he stated: ‘We need to take into account the rights of authors, but also the rights of the contents’ users as well as the fact that there are mechanisms of the contents’ circulation. We also need to look for new business models and remove any existing obstacles’.

Translation: Monika Szewczyk

In compliance with the previous announcement the Ministry of Administration and Digitization informed on its website about the commencement of the consultations on the Open Public Resources Bill. The consultations will last untill 21 January 2013. Comments can be presented on the website mamzdanie.pl and the document is to be found in The Public Information Bulletin as well.

translation: Karolina Herynowska

The Modern Poland Foundation has launched a social campaign 'The Right to Culture’. Its main goal is to enhance public awareness of freedoms under the copyright law.

The message is carried by three simple statements which are consistent with the copyright law, but often wrongly seen as a violation:

I have the right to copy books.
I have the right to download films.
I have the right to share music.

During today’s press conference, the Ministry of Administration and Digitization has announced its works on the Bill on Openness of Public Resources.

The press materials read: „Opening of public resources means public institutions making the collections of books, science articles, databases, photographs, works of art, film and music recordings that they have gathered available to the public. The Internet creates unique opportunities to make this knowledge widely accessible so that public resources are available to anyone who is interested in using them the same way they now use Wikipedia”. We are pleased to see this way of comprehending the issue of openness. It is significantly different from the stance presented recently by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The contents of Wikipedia articles are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike free license. I think that it would be excellent for the development of culture in Poland if materials made available by public institutions as part of the law on public resources opening were published under a similar free license, especially that the Ministry of Administration and Digitization has promised 10 billion PLN to fund the opening of the resources. The Modern Poland Foundation is pleased that Wolne Lektury has been listed among the examples of open resources. A month-long public consultation is to commence next week.

translation: Monika Szewczyk

On September 26, a CopyCamp conference will be held by the Modern Poland Foundation. It will take place in a Warsaw cinema of a great tradition: Kultura. The meeting will be fully devoted to the issues relating to the copyright law. For the first time, the representatives of (sometimes extremely) diverse views on the availability of cultural goods and active participation in culture will meet in such a wide circle. The aim of the event is to enable them to enter into a dialogue.

Our special guest will be Nina Paley, a famous American cartoonist and activist belonging to the free culture movement. Among guests who have confirmed their participation are: Paweł Zalewski, Hirek Wrona, Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg, Artur Kurasiński, Krzysztof Lewandowski, Radek Czajka – please see more details on the conference website.

Yesterday five non-governmental organisations sent their two joint letters – to the Minister of Economy and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage – about the negotiations being conducted on the trade agreement between Canada and the European Union (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – CETA).
In their letters the organisations demand that the Polish negotiating position in respect of the agreement and the relevant government’s actions in the current round of negotiations should be disclosed.

It is stated in the letters, among others: „In spite of an aura of mystery surrounding the negotiations of the agreement, the European Commission has recently confirmed that in the current version of CETA there are penal sanctions corresponding to the widely criticized ACTA provisions. These disproportionate penal measures are also intended to fight a non-commercial use of works under copyright (e.g. at cultural events). This is against social practice which fosters innovation and the development of new business models as well as against the reform of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights, necessary to adapt law to contemporary technical possibilities.”

And further: „We expect that Poland will take active steps to remove disproportionate penal sanctions, as well as all other repressive clauses on copyrights from CETA (as well as any and all other contracts and trade agreements, current and future). Such regulations should not be included in trade agreements, especially when negotiations are secret, without public debate. However, we expect above all that the Polish government will disclose its position adopted in the negotiations of the CETA agreement and penal sanctions included in the draft thereof.”

photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swedishcanadian/7376948382/ , autor: swedishcanadianchamber, licencja: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Thanks to an invaluable help from Internet users who responded to our recent appeal, we managed (just before the time limit set by the Court) to find the nephews and nieces of Janina Gołębiewska: Zofia Poniatowska, Jadwiga Majdaniuk and Stefan Gołębiewski.

According the data gathered, the presumptive heirs of Janina Gołębiewska died in the 1990s, which will be shortly confirmed on the basis of their death certificates provided by the Registry Offices in Lublin and Łódź. We also try to find out whether Mrs Gołębiewska drew up a will or had descendants. Thus, we will be grateful for any information which may shed new light on this issue (fundacja@nowoczesnapolska.org.pl). In the meantime, we are looking forward to the Court’s decision concerning further proceedings.

Our sincere thanks go to those who support us in our struggles to release the legacy of Janusz Korczak.