Who actually becomes the owner of the work produced – the creator or the employer? The answer is not always straightforward, and incorrect assumptions may lead to serious legal disputes and significant financial consequences. Read our article to find out how to effectively protect your company’s interests in this area.
Copyright and related rights – key information
In Poland, copyright and related rights are primarily governed by the Copyright and Related Rights Act of 1994. They cover a broad range of creative works, from written content and graphic designs to computer software and audiovisual works. The Act also regulates related rights granted, among others, to performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organisations. Importantly, a work is protected from the moment it is created, without the need for registration or compliance with any additional formalities. This means that an employee creating materials as part of their professional duties automatically becomes the author of the work, which raises the question of who is actually entitled to the rights to the completed work. Under the Act, only a natural person may be recognised as the author.
Copyright law distinguishes between two fundamental categories of rights: moral rights, which are inalienable and permanently linked to the author, and economic rights, which may be transferred to other entities, including the employer. Copyright in a corporate environment is a particularly sensitive issue in the employer–employee relationship. Therefore, professional accounting services and comprehensive legal support help prevent costly misunderstandings resulting from imprecise contractual provisions or a lack of awareness of the applicable regulations.
Protection of an employee’s moral rights and the employer’s rights
The protection of moral rights is an area that no employer may acquire or restrict, as these rights are inalienable and permanently attached to the author. They include, among others, the right to authorship of the work, the right to have the work identified by the author’s name, surname or pseudonym, and the right to preserve the integrity of the content and form of the work. Even if a company acquires the economic copyright to a project created by an employee, the creator remains its author in both the legal and moral sense. This distinction is of fundamental importance in everyday business practice.
An employer may, however, acquire the economic copyright to works created by employees. The most important of these rights include:
- the right to reproduce and make copies of the work,
- the right to make the work publicly available and distribute it,
- the right to prepare derivative works, translations and adaptations,
- the right to use the work within specified fields of exploitation.
Our legal advisory services help ensure that contracts precisely define the scope of the rights being transferred and leave no room for ambiguous interpretation. Properly drafted contractual provisions protect the interests of both parties – the employer and the employee alike.
The protection of moral rights is often overlooked at the contract stage, which may lead to disputes, for example when a company modifies a project without the author’s knowledge or fails to identify the author when publishing materials. Although an employee may contractually undertake not to exercise their moral rights, this represents a compromise between the employee’s interests and the employer’s needs. Such clauses, however, must be drafted with precision, as poorly prepared provisions may become the basis for claims even long after the cooperation has ended.
Employee copyright – when is it transferred to the employer?
Employee copyright is governed by Article 12 of the Polish Copyright and Related Rights Act. According to this provision, unless the Act or the employment contract provides otherwise, the employer acquires the economic copyright to a work created by an employee in the performance of their employment duties upon acceptance of the work. The crucial factor is the connection between the employee’s scope of duties and the work created. If a graphic designer creates a logo following a direct instruction from their supervisor, the rights are transferred to the employer. However, if an employee creates a project entirely on their own initiative, outside working hours and without any connection to their employment duties, the legal situation is entirely different.
It is worth noting that copyright in a corporate environment is not transferred automatically in every case. Three conditions must be met simultaneously:
- the work must have been created within the framework of an employment relationship, rather than under a mandate contract or a B2B agreement,
- creating such works must fall within the employee’s scope of duties,
- the employer must have accepted the work in accordance with the rules specified in the Act or the employment contract.
Copyright relating to computer software is governed by different rules. In this case, the employer acquires the economic rights without the need for formal acceptance, provided that the software was created as part of the employee’s duties. This is an important distinction that often comes as a surprise to technology companies making use of tax advisory services.
Employers seeking to fully optimise the tax burden associated with creative work should analyse the available tax reliefs and assess which of them may be applied in a particular situation. Proper settlement of creative work affects both the company’s tax liabilities and the employees’ net remuneration. Clearly regulating these matters in employment contracts, remuneration policies and internal procedures is an investment that delivers long-term benefits.
Summary
Copyright and related rights are an area that requires a conscious and well-considered approach from every employer, regardless of the industry or the scale of business operations. The rules governing the transfer of economic copyright, the scope of protection granted to authors, and employee copyright should be clearly regulated already at the stage of concluding an employment contract in order to avoid costly disputes in the future. Copyright within a company is not merely a formal issue – it is an effective means of protecting the organisation’s interests and intellectual assets.
Feel free to contact the experts at KR Group. For more than 25 years, we have been supporting companies in Poland and across the CEE region by providing comprehensive legal, tax and accounting services tailored to individual business needs.
