Plagiarism is a crime described in the Act of February 4, 1994 on copyright and related rights. Pursuant to Art. 115.1 of the Act is punishable by anyone who appropriates the authorship of all or part of someone else’s work or artistic performance.
It requires clarification that Art. 8 of the Act creates a presumption that the author is entitled to the copyright (unless the provisions state otherwise). Moreover, it is presumed that the creator is a person whose name has been mentioned in this capacity on copies of the work or whose authorship has been made public in any other way in connection with the dissemination of the work.
In addition to the misappropriation of authorship, another possible form of implementation of the offense under Art. 115 sec. 1 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act is misleading as to the authorship of all or part of someone else’s work or artistic performance.
For both indicated forms of plagiarism, the perpetrator is subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to 3 years.
In practice, there are different types of plagiarism – it may concern the entire work or just a part of it, be open or hidden. Open plagiarism consists in taking some or all of someone else’s work unchanged or with only minimal changes. Hidden plagiarism, on the other hand, is a more transformed form.
Misappropriation of authorship is a crime that can only be committed with direct intention. This means that the perpetrator must be fully aware that he is committing plagiarism.
The same penalty as for plagiarism applies to a person who disseminates, without giving the name or pseudonym of the author, someone else’s work in the original version or in the form of an elaboration, artistic performance or publicly distorting such a work, artistic performance, phonogram, videogram or broadcast.
It is worth noting that pursuant to Art. 34 of the Act, it is allowed to use works within the limits of permitted use, i.e. in the form of a quotation – provided that the author and the source are appropriately indicated.
