Karnoprawne i karnoprocesowe aspekty autorskoprawnej ochrony muzealiów
The penal-legal and penal-law-procedural aspects of protection of museum items by copyright

Summary/Abstract: In the paper, in a synthetic manner, the author discusses the most important problems of penal-legal and penal-law-procedural character, which arise de lege lata around protection of museum items by copyright. In the introduction, the term “museum item” is defined, with an indication of its legal sources and the connection with those of “a piece”, “a monument” and “work of art”. To the indispensable extent there is a comparison made between the copyright of a piece on the ground of the act on copyright and related rights and protection of a museum item realized on the basis of regulations of the act on museums, in order to mark out mutual areas of protection. The mutual areas of protection which are determined in this way are then analyzed in successive individual sections, including questions appearing, first – in the substantive criminal law, and secondly – in the law of criminal proceedings. Among the problems dealt with within the scope of the criminal law, there is presented, first of all, the catalogue of crimes which can be aimed against museum items possessing simultaneously the status of a piece. Among the questions dealt with within the scope of the law of criminal proceedings, the author points to procedural consequences of crimes against museum items and the obligations of participants of criminal proceedings which result from them, especially those of judicial bodies, parties, expert witnesses, laying particular emphasis on problems relating to securing evidence, both at the stage of preparatory proceedings and jurisdiction proceedings. The presented considerations have allowed accepting the fact that because of the particular object of crimes against museum items in criminal proceedings regarding evidence proceedings, the opinion prepared by an expert witness occupies a significant place. Based on the considerations presented in the paper, it was accepted that problems of the penal and penal-law-procedural protection of museum items by copyright display a developmental dynamic tendency, primarily due to: one the one hand – better and better technical background at the disposal of violators; on the other one – intensive perfecting of operation techniques and criminal law enforcement agencies that consistently restrict perpetrating of this type of criminal acts.

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