I have the right to copy books. I have the right to download films. I have the right to share music.

The message is carried by three simple statements which are consistent with the copyright law, but often wrongly seen as a violation:

The Modern Poland Foundation has launched a social campaign 'The Right to Culture’. Its main goal is to enhance public awareness of freedoms under the copyright law.

The three sentences – in speech bubbles – have been placed on the Warsaw subway cars’ windows. They also point to the project website prawokultury.pl, where one can find detailed information explaining legal provisions of the Copyright Law in Poland.

Art. 23 of the Copyright Law states that one is “permitted to use free of charge the work, which has been already disseminated for purposes of private use without the permission of the author.” This includes “the use of single copies of the work by a group of persons staying in a personal interrelation with each other, including in particular blood relation, kinship or a social relationship.” This means that restrictions concerning everyday activities such as copying books or e-books, downloading films or sharing music or files are not unconditional. Therefore, it is legal to make a copy of a book, download a film from the Internet or send a music album to a friend.

The campaign will be run in the social media and, among others, includes distribution of photos depicting social activists, lawyers and ordinary people with the mentioned slogans visible in the background. It is planned to last until the end of 2012.

The photos and the speech bubbles (in the SVG and PDF formats) are available under the CC BY-SA licence. Everybody’s welcome to send us their photos with the bubbles! The best ones will be published on our website.

The Modern Poland Foundation’s standpoint is that only free culture is worth our effort. Users’ rights are the foundation of democracy and the public domain should be a rule to which information monopolies are an exception. We believe that freedom of speech and freedom of communication need special support and protection. It is only possible when citizens use free tools to control the flow of information, have media and information competences and have access to free knowledge. Therefore we build open educational resources, develop free digitalization technologies and effectively influence public policies in the field of exclusive rights.