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The Broadcasting Act of 29 December 1992 (Journal of Laws of 2001 No. 101, Item 1114 with subsequent amendments), which mainly governs the audio-visual sector in Poland, has been most recently amended on 29 December 2005. Some of those amendments caused legal reservations and a lot of discussions, e.g. the fact that the Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council (NBC) should be appointed and dismissed by the President of the Republic of Poland. Upon appeal the Constitutional Tribunal, which is authorised to review norms in the context of the principles laid down in the Constitution of the Republic...

The European Commission recently approved under EC Treaty state aid rules four aid schemes meant to support film making in Poland and Ireland, music recordings by new talent in France and newspaper distribution in Denmark. All four schemes were found to entail no undue distortion of competition within the Single Market. The Danish plans sought to give publishers of certain newspaper-like publications direct grants totalling EUR 1.3 million. The aid will enable publishers to freely choose their distributors in their efforts to distribute these publications. In deciding to favour this scheme, the...

On 8 April 2006, an Act amending the Copyright and Related Rights Act of 4 February 1994 (with later amendments) has been given to the President for signature. This Act is aimed at achieving full implementation of the Directive 2001/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art (so-called droit de suite) into the Polish legal system In the course of the legislative procedure the Sejm - the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament - had adopted the Act on 23 March 2006. The Senate - the upper chamber of the Parliament...

On 27 March 2006 the Commissioner for Civil Rights Protection - guarding human and civil freedoms and rights specified in the Constitution and other legal acts - appealed to the Constitutional Tribunal with the petition to state that article 19 paragraph 9 of the Act on cinematography of 30 June 2005 is not consistent with the Constitution. The Act on cinematography of 30 June 2005 came into force on 19 August 2005. However, provisions on charges, being an important part of the cinematographic production support system (Article 19) came into force on 1 January 2006 (see IRIS 2006-1: 18). The Act...

On 26 January 2006, the European Commission decided that certain measures taken by the Polish state in the telecommunications sector should not be considered as state aid in the sense of Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty. The Polish authorities had notified a law to the Commission for it to clarify whether the measures constituted state aid. The law envisages the prolongation of deadlines for telecoms operators' licence fee payments, debt write-offs and the conversion of outstanding debt into companies' shares. The payment obligations of the telecoms companies concerned arose from the purchase...