The Polish market for software and services totalled at least $100m in 1993, according to the Polish Software Market Association. At the time of the Computer Expo show in January 1994 however, the industry found itself in an unusual predicament. Mounting pressure from the US government, which initiated sanctions procedures in order to bring pressure to bear on the new socialist Polish administration to speed up the introduction of a comprehensive copyright law, has had its effect. The Author Ownership and Related Copyrights bill, which was approved by the lower house of the Sejm at the turn of the year, stipulated that programs copied prior to the new law could continue to be used indefinitely without any liability. But it was never clear whether the amnesty clause was intended to cease upon publication of the law in mid-February – or when the legislation actually came into effect this month – and this was not tested in the courts. Before the law was drafted, copyright in Poland was implicitly protected by other laws on the ownership of pictures and the like. The inclusion of the amnesty clause, which was not popular with all sectors of the industry, meant that users could explicitly pirate software with total impunity until the law went onto the statute books. The motivation behind Article 121 Clause 3 appears not to have been a desire to avoid courting unpopularity from the pirates or to protect businesses from the costs of transition, but to prevent Polish public sector bodies from having to fork out for expensive operating systems that were bought in good faith from Russia and East Germany but which, it subsequently turned out, were usually ripped off from major software manufacturers globally.
Prosecutions
The existence of these bastard operating systems has caused much rubbing of chins on the part of the international software tool vendors; Andrzej Staniszczak, Unix sales representative for Computer Associates International Inc in eastern Europe, which has ‘tens’ of CA-Unicenter installations in the country and was exhibiting at the show for the first time, said his company had no option but to tell customers to call it back at a later date when it came across the pirate copies. Bogdan Michalak, secretary of the Polish Software Market Association, launched an outspoken attack on the amnesty in the Polish press, and claims that it offers thieves ownership rights under the law. However, the Polish government does not appear to have pushed its luck too far and, broadly speaking, the legislation has been welcomed. Andrzej Golonko, marketing director of Microsoft Poland, commented: We are happy it was introduced. We don’t see it as an immediate means to increase revenues, but as part of convergence with European Union norms. Certainly the legislation has cleared the way for the Business Software Alliance, which just established a branch in the country, to initiate prosecutions. The Alliance has expanded its reach into eastern Europe following the adoption of the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade requirements, which require signatory states specifically to protect software copyright. The Alliance is now in process of drumming up contributions so that it can open up in Russia. The Alliance brought its first cases in eastern Europe against Czech computer firms VT Data and Dialog Agro in March. But Poland, where large volumes of software have been sold openly on market stalls in Warsaw city centre, right outside the Palace of Science and Culture, will now be the Alliance’s top priority.
