Poland is an EU member, so your government must have some implementation of the EU Copyright directive, which includes somewhat similar anti-circumvention clauses as the DMCA[0].

There are lots of differences in the details, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement that it's completely legal without actually checking the corresponding laws.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive#Technologi...

I read during earlier attempts to pass the Copyright directive that it is not implementable in Poland because it would be unconstitutional. I understood that was why Poland was voting against it, but that was in the summer, and I’m not sure if the version that passed is different.

You need to realize that the EU "directives" are not actually the law (aka the thing that will get you prosecuted).

The directives are "transposed" into national law, country by country - and each country can (and does) add a local "flavor" to it. So if the Poles have watered down the anti-circumvention clause (it is very vague in the directive, giving a ton of maneuvering space to the national parliaments), the situation he is describing is very possible. On the opposite side of the spectrum is traditionally France, with its (fortunately incredibly ineffective) three strike system. Very different approaches to things even though both countries are implementing the same copyright directive.

The other type of texts coming from Brussels are "regulations" - those go into effect immediately, without having to be rewritten into national laws. GDPR is an example of such regulation.

You're absolutely correct. However,in the event that directives are not transposed (or not transposed correctly) courts can find that the directive is (vertically) directly effective.

I am aware, that's why I wrote "some implementation of", which needs to be checked. I am skeptical about the blanket statement made, it's usually more nuanced.

> in Poland it is perfectly legal to watch copyrighted material as long as you don't redistribute it.

Be careful with that one. The Netherlands had that too until some European court decided that our laws were foolish and went "that's all wrong, it's obviously illegal" after which there was case law about it being illegal and now it's illegal. The ministry immediately went "oh, well, we s'ppose it's illegal then from roundabout last week!"

In case you were wondering who's behind this expensive lawsuit that lasted from 2008 to 2014: we had "home copy tax" (thuiskopieheffing), so you pay a few bucks extra for storage devices (hard drives, usb sticks, smartphones) and that was redistributed to rights holders as compensation for "home copies" (copies for personal use in your household, backups, that sort of thing). Shops did not like that they had to pay extra taxes that they did not have to pay in other countries, so they went to court and got us where we are now.

Dutch news about it: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95332/nederland-mag-illegaal-dow...

> Nederland stelt dat het downloaden van dergelijk materiaal hetzelfde is als het kopiëren van een cd of dvd, maar daar gaat het Europese Hof niet in mee. Volgens het Hof kan een wet die 'geen enkel onderscheid maakt tussen kopieën uit geoorloofde bronnen en kopieën uit vervalste bronnen' niet worden gedoogd, omdat dergelijke wetgeving auteursrechtinbreuk kan bevorderen.

Translated:

~ The Netherlands claims that downloading of such material is the same as copying a cd or dvd, but the EU court does not agree. According to the EU court, a law that makes 'no distinction can be made between copied from allowed sources and from forged sources' can be allowed, because such laws promote copyright infringement.

Dutch news about the government's response: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/95335/kabinet-nederland-heeft-pe...

> Het is in Nederland per direct verboden om auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal te downloaden uit illegale bron, bijvoorbeeld via torrentsites en nieuwsgroepen. Dat stelt het kabinet in een reactie op een uitspraak van het EU-hof.

Translated

~ It is in the Netherlands henceforth prohibited to download copyrighted material from an illegal source, for example through torrent sites and newsgroups. This is the ministry's response to the ruling of the EU court.

So we didn't need any law change, parliamentary debate, nothing. It was in effect right away.

> so you pay a few bucks extra for storage devices (hard drives, usb sticks, smartphones) and that was redistributed to rights holders as compensation for "home copies" (copies for personal use in your household, backups, that sort of thing)

We have kind of the same in Germany, and our overview on Wikipedia[1] looks even more complicated and expensive than yours[1]. You're still not allowed to circumvent effective copyright protections to make your private copy. But I'd be surprised if e.g. music only available with DRM would be excluded from earning a share of that fee.

Interestingly, before the recent EU copyright reform, this fee benefited only authors directly, instead of the rights holder.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauschalabgabe [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuiskopieheffing

I also read many articles claiming that it is legal to watch copyrighted material, as long as it is not redistributed. However I'm not sure that's actually true.

As per https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law

Article 23, paragraph 1:

> It shall be permitted to use free of charge the work, which has been already disseminated for purposes of private use without the permission of the author.

Article 6, point 3:

> the disseminated work shall mean a work which, with a permission of its author, has been made available to the public by any means whatsoever

So, it is legal to access the work without permission, if author gave prior permission to make it available to the public. However I'm not sure if selling a book in a store or showing a movie in a cinema would automatically mean that such work can be downloaded freely from the Internet - technically the work is available to the public, but I'm sure the author did not give permission for the work to be available on the Internet.

or Cambodia, which has some interesting laws on copyright that effectively mean foreign copyrights are not enforceable there.

> (I'm not a lawyer, just reading some of the more technical law articles)

I'd advise not giving out bad advice then stating absolutes about the legal situation that are wrong.