Polish Artists Protest against Copyright Law Amendments

More than 470 eminent Polish artists have recently signed a petition against copyright law amendments aiming to relieve Internet search engines from liability for providing access to infringing material.

Under the proposed amendments, the search engines would be held liable for copyright infringement only if they directly influenced the high ranking of an infringing website in search results. If a link to infringing content comes up automatically during a search, the search engine would not be liable.

The government is still reviewing the amendments, proposed by Michal Boni, minister of administration and digitization. Even though in line with the EU directive on electronic commerce, the amendments are not in the copyright ownersí best interest.

Minister of Culture Bogdan Zdrojewski has taken the side of the artists in the debate, stating that the proposed amendments may increase the amount of infringing material available online.

Prepared by: Masa Lopicic

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Source: Polskie radio news portal