POLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Agata Szeliga, Sylwia Macura-Targosz and Aleksandra Krześniak-Sałajczyk, Sołtysiński Kawecki & Szlęzak
2024: A Brief Summary 2024 was a year of many significant and long- awaited amendments to Polish law. First, a new Electronic Communications Law (ECL) was adopted – a law implementing the European Electronic Communications Code (Directive 2018/1972), which basically replaced the exist - ing Telecommunications Law in its entirety. Due to the very broad scope that the ECL regulates, including issues of performing activities in the electronic communications market or spectrum management (radio/TV frequencies), the law is called the telecommunications market code . From the perspective of mobile operators or Internet providers, the new guidelines for con - cluding or renewing consumer contracts are essential. These include the obligation to inform about the conditions under which the existing contract will be renewed, the obligation to pro - vide certain information in plain language before concluding the contract, or the obligation to transfer funds from the pre-paid card in the situ - ation of transferring the number to a new oper - ator (until now, the funds were mostly lost). In this regard, service providers should check the compliance of their end-users documentation (T&C, price lists, etc) with the new regulations. As a general rule, existing marketing consents remain in force as long as they meet the condi - tions specified by ECL. It is also worth mention - ing the new prerogative of the President of the Office of Electronic Communications (President of the OEC) to issue area decisions. Area deci - sions are to: • replace individual decisions of the President of the OEC; and • apply to a specific area and address general conditions rather than specific entities. The second, long-awaited change was the imple - mentation of the Copyright Directive (Directive
2019/790). This directive, along with other EU regulations (ie, Directive 2019/789 – SAT-CAB II Directive), was implemented in the Polish legal system through an amendment to the Act of 4 February 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights. The amendment introduced several important changes, two of which have evoked strong feel - ings. The first change involves providing royalties to authors (creators) and performers for stream - ing, meaning they will receive compensation for making their works available online, especially on video-on-demand platforms or streaming services. The second change introduces a new related right for press publishers. This amend - ment gives publishers the exclusive right to use press publications in specific areas, including reproduction and public display on the Internet. Furthermore, authors of works featured in these press publications are entitled to receive 50% of the revenue that the publisher earns from using the publication under this new related right. As a rule, the amount of remuneration for press publishers should be agreed upon individu - ally between platform providers and publishers. However, if the parties fail to reach an agreement in this regard, the body authorised to conduct mediation is the President of the OEC. If media - tion is not successful – for example, the parties still fail to agree on the amount of remuneration – then the President of the OEC is authorised to issue a ruling on the amount of remuneration for the use of the new related right by platform providers to publishers. The third significant change that had a major impact on the TMT sector was the entry into force of the Digital Services Act (EU Regulation 2022/2065; DSA). Although the law implement - ing the DSA in Poland is still in the legislative stage (see below for more details), many Inter - net entrepreneurs (e-commerce, hosting provid -
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