That's the point you cannot give up personal copyrights even if you want to. It's supposed to prevent big companies forcing authors to sign deals bad for them when they have all the power.
I'm not sure how this apply for software, I think it's less restrictive than for art (and it almost never comes up because Poland isn't a litigious country unlike US).
Hmm, so does that mean that a GPL'ed software project targetting the whole world and with a variety of international developers should reject contributions from Polish residents?
Or, if we want to avoid software: what's the status of a Wikipedia contribution (CC-BY-SA-3.0) made by a Polish resident? Can I not safely assume that the content is CC-BY-SA-3.0? Must I assume that a Polish author can come after me if I follow the letter of CC-BY-SA-3.0, but not in a way that he or she likes?
Sorry, IANAL. Open Source software is written in Poland with all the usual open source licences and it works so I'm sure at least in practice it's not a problem.
A lot of it is thanks to the fact that suing people is much less common here, so it never gets challanged. Also the person who lost the case pays the costs here unlike in the US so that's a deterrent.
I've looked into it now and it seems for software the personal copyrights are restricted compared to art. So for example you can't veto changes made to your software after you sold economic rights to it or using it for stuff you disagree with.
> Must I assume that a Polish author can come after me if I follow the letter of CC-BY-SA-3.0, but not in a way that he or she likes?
I think they'd have to prove that the way it's used harms them. It's not enough to say "I don't like it". But again IANAL.
There has been some cases for example about using Solidarity movement logo from 80s by various now-conflicted post-solidarity political parties and their supporters. I don't know who won, but I know that the author of the original logo was involved despite giving the rights to that logo to anti-communist opposition decades ago.
Just to be clear: I'm not trying to fight or argue with you here, I'm just trying to understand :-)
> Sorry, IANAL. Open Source software is written in Poland with all the usual open source licences and it works so I'm sure at least in practice it's not a problem.
But "in practice" is hardly sufficient :P
> A lot of it is thanks to the fact that suing people is much less common here, so it never gets challanged. Also the person who lost the case pays the costs here unlike in the US so that's a deterrent.
I'm a European too, and live in a very non-litiguous country, so I have no problem understanding the mindset of not suing over everything. But it still seems really weird for a country's copyright system to rely on this (sane) behavior.
> I think they'd have to prove that the way it's used harms them. It's not enough to say "I don't like it". But again IANAL.
So if a Polish resident contributes an original photograph to a Wikipedia article under CC-BY-SA-3.0, and I (or a Polish entity) use that photograph under the terms of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 in a way that "harms" the copyright holder, he can sue me (or the Polish entity in question) under Polish law? This seems absolutely insane to me, and surely can't be the case!
This sounds a lot like the license that Berkeley SPICE was under a long time ago [1], whereby it was essentially open source, but specifically the South African police were not allowed to use it. This kind of stuff – even when well-intended – causes massive headaches.
I would argue "in practice" is all that matters. No matter what you do if someone with enough power wants to fuck you up legally - he will. As true in USA as in Germany, Poland, Russia or North Korea. Only the probability is different. It's sad, but it's the reality we live in.
I prefer a system with obvious loopholes and low "getting fucked probability" (GFP) to a system with no loopholes and high GFP.
Government of my country in last 5 years broke constitution dozens of times, including unlawfully changing the election date, changing how judges are chooosen (making them dependant on the politicians), restricting many kinds of personal liberties like freedom of assembly without going through the proper process and many others. And nobody can do anything because they have political support because they gave away a big portion of yearly GDP to poor people.
Constutitional Tribunal said the government is breaking the law. Government ignored it and changed the judges (breaking the law again). Some people protested, most people ignored it. Now a PM that admited "our law breaks the constitution but I will vote for it" became the chairman of that Tribunal as a big "fuck you" to the opposition.
So what that our system of checks and balances was pretty good (I'd argue better than the one in Germany and USA) if the government just decides to ignore it and people don't care?
So I much prefer practice to theory. Good system doesn't work if people don't care. Bad system still works if people care enough.
> So if a Polish resident contributes an original photograph to a Wikipedia article under CC-BY-SA-3.0, and I (or a Polish entity) use that photograph under the terms of the CC-BY-SA-3.0 in a way that "harms" the copyright holder, he can sue me (or the Polish entity in question) under Polish law? This seems absolutely insane to me, and surely can't be the case!
and it mentions "autorskie prawa osobowe" (personal copyright rights) as one example of additional restrictions.
> Licencja może nie zapewniać wszystkich niezbędnych zgód dla niektórych użyć utworu. Dotyczy to w szczególności innych praw, takich jak ochrona wizerunku, prywatności czy autorskie prawa osobiste. Mogą one ograniczać możliwości wykorzystania utworu.
Paraphrased (sorry IANAL and translating legalese is not my strong point): The licence might not ensure all required permissions for some uses of the art. It's possible especially in cases of other rights being violated, like the right to protect identity, privacy or personal copyright which might further restrict possible uses of the art.
I'm pretty sure Poland isn't the only country where there are additional restrictions, I don't know why you think it's insane honestly.
I'm not sure how this apply for software, I think it's less restrictive than for art (and it almost never comes up because Poland isn't a litigious country unlike US).