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THE POLISH MEDIA LAW AMENDMENT (BROADCASTING ACT) – PROVISIONS, CONTROVERSIES AND ITS INTERNATIONAL LAW CONSEQUENCES

On 11th August 2021 Poland’s lower house of parliament passed an Amendment Act to the Act of 29 December 1992 on broadcasting (radio and television)[1]. This draft law aroused vast controversies and interest both among the Polish and international society. The draft law has been submitted to the Sejm (lower house of the Polish parliament) at the beginning of July 2021 and after one month the Amendment Act was passed by the Sejm and has been conveyed to the Senate (the higher house of Polish parliament) and President. Thus, the Sejm enactment was only the first instance of the legislative process, now the Senate will get on the Act.

To see the legislation path in Sejm: https://www.sejm.gov.pl/sejm9.nsf/PrzebiegProc.xsp?nr=1389

Before we move to the Amendment Act itself, at first we will begin by outlining the general legal frames of the Broadcasting Act.

MEDIA LAW – POLISH REGULATIONS

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Electronic currency volatility in the recent El Salvador case

The bitcoin currency has been experiencing its peak moments for a long time. Many consider bitcoin to be an easy way to earn money, and others consider it to be the “currency of the future”. Unfortunately, this view may be in future verified, as can be seen on the example of the Republic of El Salvador.

On September 7, 2021, El Salvador officially adopted bitcoin as an official and legal tender, making the cryptocurrency an accepted means of exchange for goods and services. The euphoria and optimism related to the changes did not last long, because on the same day, there was a huge drop in the value of bitcoin. Within moments on Tuesday, September 7, bitcoin’s value plunged 17% and ended its decline on Wednesday by around 10%. Other digital assets also fell. According to Kraken (the cryptocurrency exchange in general), Cardano’s token (ADA) and the second largest cryptocurrency, Ether, fell 18% and around 13% respectively. (As of September 8 at 5:00 p.m.).

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Escrow agreements for the acquisition of source codes and licenses for their use

Technology transfer agreements as well as investment agreements are often accompanied by source code escrow agreements used to secure the IP rights to the software.

Source code

The key of programs and software is the source code. It is the fundamental component of a computer program that is created by a programmer.  The source code should be written using a human-readable programming language – usually plain text. The main goal of it is to set exact rules and specifications for the computer that can be translated into the machine’s language.

What is source code escrow?

Sometimes it happens that even if special software tailored to one’s needs is created by a professional company, problems may arise. The investor needs to make every effort to protect company in the event that the contractor’s company ceases to exist, for example because of its bankruptcy or liquidation. In such cases, the solution to secure the transfer of ownership of the source code is to put in place source code escrow agreement. This is a service that helps protect all parties involved in a software licence by having a neutral, independent third party escrow agent hold the source code. 

Main principles of source code escrow

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MINING POOLS – How to get a cryptocurrency?

MINING POOLS – How to get a cryptocurrency?

KIEŁTYKA GŁADKOWSKI KG LEGAL constantly supervises and prepares its lawyers for the specialization in which they provide services for foreign clients. In order to systematize the conceptual grid of very specialized fields of IT, telecommunications, biology, medicine and modern finance, KIEŁTYKA GŁADKOWSKI conducts internal consultations to improve the experience of our lawyers specializing in legal assistance for foreign clients from the IT and TECH sector. As a result of such internal research, KIEŁTYKA GŁADKOWSKI creates and publishes texts on topics related to modern legal problems, but also to explain the basic concepts of specialized IT and pharmaceutical fields. In this way, KIEŁTYKA GŁADKOWSKI aims to demonstrate to potential clients within specialized industries that our lawyers are also familiar with specialist terms necessary for a proper understanding of our foreign client’s business and legal needs.

This is one of those texts. We invite you to read it.

How to get a cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is not emitted by some central, national bank as it happens with classical form of money (fiat money). Cryptocurrency is made in a digital sphere and the only way to obtain the currency from the blockchain system is to mine it (similarly and metaphorically to the gold mining). Cryptocurrency mining works similarly to the gold mining. Virtual coins can be discovered digitally using computer programs. The Bitcoin, for instance, has set a limit of total of 21 million bitcoins. Thus the faster you dig bitcoins the more of them you will have (if we consider only mining). All bitcoins are lying within the blockchains system and the role of the computer program and the miners is to dig it from that system, precisely to discover it in that system. Thereby there can be one miner or a clubbed miners’ group who dig together, faster and more effectively and then they divide their profits among each other.

What is a mining pool?

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Non-fungible token (NFT) – legal aspects and application in the art trade

What is NTF?

NFT is a blockchain technology gradually entering our lives, more increasingly related to contemporary state-of-the-art artwork that can be purchased at international art auctions. Non-fungible token (NFT) is a key part of the blockchain economy. This is a type of cryptographic token that is stored on a blockchain architecture. It is a unique, digital certificate that provides certain ownership rights in an asset and it is not possible to copy it. Each of the tokens is individual, of different value and has no equivalent for itself. The most common standard for creating and issuing tokens is ERC-20, but there are other standards in operation (e.g., ERC-223, ERC-721, ERC-777, and ERC-1155). Each successive standard is created with increased security and speed in mind. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files.

Blockchain is a decentralized database used to store and transmit information about transactions made on the Internet. One of the features of NFTs is that it can only be bought, sold and traded as individual assets and this is one of their differentiators in the market.

The Cryptocurrency market is growing at an accelerated rate and NFT trading is definitely following it. NFTs differ from cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or DDKoin in that they are both not interchangeable and not identical. In addition, owning a given token does not entitle us to the rights reflected by the token. NFTs can’t be divided into parts as the elementary unit here is the token itself, whereas fungible tokens can be because all the units have the same value. It does not matter which unit you get.

How to mint NFT?

Creating and saving NFT for the first time on a block chain involves minting. This is how the digital art becomes a part of Ethereum blockchain. Thanks to this process artists can purchase, trade and track in the market the art works.  Minters may be the creator of the work associated with the NFT, such as the artist. It can also be someone who has the appropriate rights to mint NFT digital assets. NFT contains unique identifier (called also ‘TokenID’), the blockchain wallet address of current owner and an identifier of where the digital work may be found. Transactions are fully transparent, so anyone can view an NFT and its underlying information, including the blockchain address of the current owner and the blockchain address of any previous owner. In addition, since transactions on a blockchain are publicly viewable, buyers can see the address from which the NFT was first minted.

NFT and cats?

Early forms of NFTs have been around since the mid-2010s. The NFT technology gained popularity in 2017 with the virtual cat-trading game called CryptoKitties. Namely, this is a game on Ethereum developed by Canadian studio Dapper Labs  which allows players to adopt and trade virtual cats. Each cat is one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by the owner and it cannot be replicated, taken away, or destroyed. Then NFT gained momentum. Many people have used the game as a way to earn big amounts of money quick. According to the TechCrunch website research from 2017, about $1.3M has been transacted, with multiple kittens selling for ~50 ETH (around $23,000) and the “genesis” kitten being sold for a record ~246 ETH (around $113,000).

The first 5000 days

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