- Office of Electronic Communications

Obligation to make payments to the Polish Film Institute by providers of on-demand audiovisual media services

Regulations have been added[1] to the Cinematography Act[2] governing, among others, the amount and rules of making payments to the Polish Film Institute by providers of on-demand audiovisual media services and exemptions from the obligation to pay (Article 19 sections 6a-6c).

Payment obligation

According to art. 19 section 6a of the Cinematography Act, the above-mentioned entities are obliged to make a payment to the Polish Film Institute in the amount of 1.5% of the revenue obtained from fees for access to publicly available audiovisual media services on demand or the revenue obtained from the issue of commercial communications, if this revenue in a given billing period is higher.

On the other hand, the entity providing the audiovisual media service on demand, if it has its registered office in another Member State of the European Union, makes the payment referred to above, determined on the basis of revenues obtained on the territory of the Republic of Poland (Article 19 (6b) of the Cinematography Act)

Entities exempt from the obligation to make payments (Article 19 (6c) of the Cinematography Act)

However, the obligation to make the abovementioned payments, does not apply to the entity providing the audiovisual service on demand:

- who is a micro-entreprise within the meaning of Art. 7 item 1 point 1 of the Entrepreneurs Law[3] or,

- whose number of users of all audiovisual media services made available by him publicly on demand in the year preceding the year in which the obligation to pay to the Polish Film Institute is established, did not exceed 1% of subscribers of data transmission services providing broadband Internet access.

Method of determining the number of users of data transmission services providing broadband Internet access

The number of users of data transmission services providing broadband Internet access is determined on the basis of data from the inventory referred to in Article 29 of the Act on supporting the development of telecommunications services and networks.

The number of users of data transmission services providing broadband Internet access as at 31.12.2019, determined on the basis of data from this year's inventory of telecommunications infrastructure and services, is 7.770.794.

The indicated provisions of art. 19 of the Cinematography Act enter into force on July 1, 2020.

Additional information

According to art. 19 section 8 of the Cinematography Act, payments referred to, among others in section 6a, are transfered on a quarterly basis within 30 days after the end of the quarter. These payments constitute tax deductible costs, within the meaning of the income tax regulations, on the date they are incurred (Article 19 (10) of the Cinematography Act).