Abstract

The article is dedicated to information source secrecy to the extent of its regulation in the copyright law. The article discusses structural elements of that secrecy an analyses selected interpretational doubts arising in connection with the current wording of Art. 84 of the of the Act of 4 February 1994 on copyright and derivative rights. For example, doubts have been raised as to the prerequisites for waiving the duty of confidentiality and the resulting legal uncertainty with respect to citizen journalism. Another doubt refers to the scope in which the disclosing party may prohibit further disclosure of that information and meta-information about the source – Art. 84 of the Copyright Law may be interpreted as a special basis for restricting dissemination of ideas (information) unprotected by copyright. The analysis presented in the article contains also an interesting observation that there are no sanctions for violating this secrecy. The need to continue studies, in particular in order to establish the right relationship between this secrecy and journalist secrecy, has been also emphasized.