What is seed capital?

Seed capital funds handle with financial support for enterprises at an early stage of development or newly created enterprises (start-ups). This is due to the fact that novice entrepreneurs, when starting their adventure with business, have limited resources to implement innovative ideas – one may even be tempted to say that the only capital is their project. The aforementioned funds not only make their resources available, but also offer substantive support, e.g. in the field of introducing the product to the market. In return, investors receive shares in this company, the purpose of which is to commercialize a new product or service.

How to get seed capital effectively?

Obtaining this type of financing is not an easy operation, as evidenced by strong statistics – on average 6 out of 10 entrepreneurs fail, despite the initial enthusiasm of investors and the vision of earning much more money. Putting aside such pessimistic statistics, a person looking for the attention of business people, should first have a solid and substantive business plan that will contain the most accurate descriptions of his vision, along with ideas for development after receiving funding. When this key condition is met, the stage of negotiations with potential investors takes place. They are aimed at defining the structure, financing conditions and its costs. The entirety of this long and complicated project ends with the signing of an investment agreement.

More

As the market for cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets is growing at a frenetic pace, last year there were many discussions in the European Union about the rules and regulations related to them. On September 24, 2020 the European Commission has issued an important project affecting the Market of Crypto-assets in the European Union, namely the Proposal for the REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on Markets in Crypto-assets, and amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937.

What is the purpose of the proposal?

Due to the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, there has occurred a need for increased regulatory scrutiny. There are different approaches to cryptocurrencies around the world regarding government regulations. The regulations in the new draft are designed to protect consumers from cyber-attacks, theft or malfunction on cryptocurrency exchanges. What is surprising – despite the emphasis on increased scrutiny and protection, the regulation does not mention a requirement for mandatory insurance against, for example, loss of assets due to fraud or cyber-attack.

More

The Court of Justice of the European Union, in a judgment important not only for IT environments, decided that if a computer program does not work, in certain cases it can be decompiled

The buyer of a computer program has the right to decompile it in order to remove errors and thus does not infringe the copyright, the Court of Justice of the European Union found in a judgment important not only for IT communities, on 6 October 2021.

Computer programs are considered works and therefore are subject to copyright in Poland. However, these are specific works, therefore, at the EU level, a separate directive on the legal protection of computer programs (91/250/EEC) has been dedicated to them. It regulates a number of technological aspects related to the use of software, including its possible decompilation. The buyer of the program usually does not have access to its source code. He gets it in the form of machine code. In order to change something in it, it is necessary to decompile it. The question, however, is when is it legally permissible.

Decompilation therefore constitutes an alteration of the program’s code, which involves a reproduction – at least a partial and temporary one – of that code, and a translation of the form of that code.

Decompilation of a computer program involves the performance of acts, namely the reproduction of the program code and the translation of the form of that code, which in fact come within the exclusive rights of the author, as defined in Article 4(a) and (b) of Directive 91/250.

EU legislature thus intended to limit the scope of the exception for interoperability, as laid down in that provision, to circumstances in which the interoperability of an independently created program with other programs cannot be carried out by any other means, but only by means of decompilation of the program concerned.

More

The planned 5G auction in Poland has already aroused quite lively industry discussions regarding the establishment of its basic regulatory assumptions.

The imbalance between the demand and supply of frequency resources makes it necessary to allocate them in the selection procedure in Poland, based on Polish legal regulations, e.g. on the European Code of Electronic Communications, which should be implemented by December 21, 2020 at the latest. The draft of the new Polish Act – Electronic Communications Law is already delayed, which is important for the conditions of the 5G auctions in Poland.

Polish law distinguishes three types of so-called selection procedures: competition, tender and auction. The competition does not apply in the case of 5G, the tender and auction come to the fore in this respect.

The basic difference between a tender and an auction is expressed in the method of evaluating the bids. Pursuant to the Polish Act – Telecommunications Law, the criteria for evaluating bids in the tender are compliance with the conditions of competition, the amount declared by the tender participant and other objective criteria. On the other hand, the criterion for evaluating the bids in the auction is only the amount declared by the auction participant.

More

In the era of COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping has become even more popular. Electronic payments are one of the most important, if not the most important segment of modern finance. Many companies have been quick to recognize this trend by introducing the BNPL (buy now pay later) service. This service allows you to postpone the payment for purchases for up to 30 days. However, most importantly it is a free service with no hidden additional costs as long as the buyer pays for the product on time. In case the consumer does not pay, he will have to pay commissions or be charged interest. In practice it means that the buyer pays for the product after receiving it, gets acquainted with it, checks whether it suits him and whether it works properly. With the rapid progress of digitalization, consumers’ approach to shopping and paying for the latter is changing. Such a facility is useful especially in the case of fashion shopping, where the customer has the opportunity to try the product before making the final decision. This service enjoys considerable interest in Poland and worldwide, e.g. in the United Kingdom it has already been used by nearly 33 percent of consumers who shop online.

Buy now pay later in Poland – legal regulations and market trends

More