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On 11 August 2021, the Polish Parliament (lower chamber) adopted an amendment to the Law on Radio and Television, commonly referred to as "lex TVN". Why there is a controversy around this bill? The opposition points out that it targets TVN, a TV station allegedly unfavourable to the government, while the ruling party argues that the bill aims to prevent the Polish media from being bought by companies from non-democratic countries such as Russia, China or Arab states. The passing of the bill by the Parliament coincided with the TVN group applying for an extension of its licence. A provision...

On 15 July 2021, Advocate General (AG) Saugmandsgaard Øe delivered his highly awaited opinion on Case C‑401/19. This case concerns an action brought on the basis of Article 263 TFEU by the Republic of Poland asking the Court to annul Article 17(4)(b) and (c), in fine, of Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the Council from 17 April 2019 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market and amending Directives 96/9/EC and 2001/29/EC and, in the alternative, to annul Article 17 in its entirety. This provision imposes on those providers obligations to monitor...

Following an appeal by Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and UFA Fiction GmbH, the Kraków appeal court has amended a first-instance decision requiring them to issue a public apology for breaching the personality rights of members of the Polish Home Army (AK) and to pay compensation in relation to the broadcast and production of the film series Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter (Our mothers, our fathers). While the compensation order was quashed, the obligation to issue a public apology on Polish television and the German channels ZDF, ZDFneo and 3sat was upheld. The written grounds for...

As of 1 July 2020, on-demand audiovisual media service providers in Poland are subject to a new fee: the so-called “Netflix tax”. The fee is to be paid by on-demand audiovisual media service providers to the Polish Film Institute (PISF) and amounts to 1.5% of the revenue received from fees for access to audiovisual media services made available to the public on demand or from commercial communications, whichever is higher. The new VOD-related fee has been introduced by the Polish Government as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fees collected by the PISF will be allocated...

In a case concerning Internet liability for third-party comments, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) again delivered an interesting judgment in support of the right to freedom of expression on the Internet. In the case of Jezior v. Poland, the ECtHR found that holding the administrator of a local website liable for defamatory third-party comments, which upon notice had been immediately removed, amounted to a violation of the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). As in the case of Magyar Tartalomszolgáltatók Egyesülete...