newtech.law - legal aspects of new technologies

Will AI replace lawyers and judges or simply change the way they work and think about the law?

Back in the late 1980s, lawyers used to type their legal briefs on old-fashioned typewriters. Briefs were shorter then but drove right to the central issue of the case. Now some lawyers copy/paste long passages from other briefs and compose new ones running to hundreds of pages. Judges’ opinions are longer too, burying the true reasons behind their decisions in page after page of verbiage. Word-processing software makes it easy to spin out long briefs or opinions where the real issues often become blurred. More importantly, it seems the way we write has also affected the way we think.

It is easy to break copyright law when using torrents. Nonetheless, if a demand for payment arrives requesting discretionary amends for harm caused by distributing, say, a film without a licence, it must be read carefully and checked whether its sender is actually the rights holder, or just someone making a living from sending such letters.

The main objective of the planned regulation is to enable the efficient location of assets which could be associated with a crime, or be subject to judicial or administrative enforcement.

In April of last year, we pondered the legal aspects of e-sport and stated that its status in Poland is unregulated. This situation may change with the recently published proposal to amend the Sports Act, drafted by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism.

During the past year Bitcoin doubled its value. Those who acquired this currency at a lower rate can now reap great profits. The ability to tax income on this basis has long been subject to doubt. Recently, a change of statistical classification of trade in Bitcoin augmented uncertainty in this regard.

R&D relief was included in Poland’s income tax law from 1 January 2016. A year later, under the “Small Innovation Act,” major changes were introduced to make the incentives more attractive.