The Polish law on copyright and related rights provides for equipment and operator levies. These levies are designed as fair compensation paid to rightsholders. The rationale behind this mechanism is that the copyright legislation ‘interferes’ with the rights of copyright holders by allowing third parties to use their works without their consent and, in most cases, without any remuneration. The levies are conceived of as collective compensation awarded to a specific group of persons entitled to receive it.
The collection of the levies is a responsibility of reproduction rights organisations, which are also in charge of distributing the collected money, directly or indirectly, to those authorised to benefit from the remuneration.
As rightsholders, publishers are entitled to remuneration from levies collected under Articles 20(1) and 201 of the Polish law on copyright and related rights. Article 20(1) provides for levies paid by producers and importers of copying equipment and related carriers (A3 and A4 paper), while Article 201 provides for levies paid by owners of reprographic equipment whose business consists in reproducing works for the private use of individuals. In both cases, publishers are authorised to receive 50% of the collected levies – the other 50% goes to authors.
