The draft amendment to the Copyright Act

On 22 April  there was held the first parliamentary reading of the draft amendment to the Polish Copyrights Act. The amendment is intended to implement, into Polish law, the directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the term of  protection of copyright and certain related rights.

The main objective of the revision is to standardize the method of calculating the term of protection of economic copyright to the verbal-musical work, as well as to extend the term of protection of related rights and to provide adequate protection of rights of performers throughout their lives. 

Term of protection of verbal-musical work is to be standardized, which means that the term of protection will be extended from 50 years to 70 years in respect to all kinds of verbal-musical works.

The amendment is to eliminate the situation in which copyright to the text of the verbal-musical work (when not a collective work), would expire at an different time than the rights to the composition itself. The proposed change involves also extension of the term of protection of performing rights and rights to phonograms and introduction of additional measures to safeguard the financial interests of performers.