The institution of droit de suite is regulated by art. 19 section 1 of the Act of 4 February 1994 on copyright and related rights, according to which the creator and his heirs, in the case of professional resale of original copies of a work of art or photography, are entitled to remuneration.
The essence of this right comes down to granting the author of the work (art, photography, literary and musical manuscripts, art. 191 p.a.p.p.) and his heirs the right to a specific fraction of the price achieved by each subsequent sale of this work in professional trade. It is therefore a separate copyright and legal entitlement of a property nature (judgment of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw of 27 June 2019, reference number V ACa 473/18). The origins of this right can be found in French law, where it was introduced into the legal system in order to secure the financial situation of creators and their heirs. Currently, this right primarily serves to equalize the economic situation of creators of so-called fine arts with other creators who obtain income from each subsequent exploitation of the work (E. Traple, System prawa prywatna. Tom 13. Prawo pracownicy, ed. J. Barty, Warsaw 2017, p. 222).
According to the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Poznań of 12 June 2024 (I AGa 280/22), the institution of droit de suite resulting from art. 19 of the u.p.a.p.p. cannot be included in the author’s financial rights in the strict sense. This is a financial author’s right included among special (independent, autonomous, sui generis) rights to remuneration.
The right regulated in art. 19 sec. 1 of the u.p.a.p.p. the second sentence of art. 922 § 2 kc refers to, hence this right does not belong to the estate. According to the content of the second sentence, the rights indicated therein, not belonging to the estate, may pass to designated persons who may or may not be heirs. In the case of the right from art. 19 sec. 1 u.a.p.p.p., the persons to whom the creator’s right to remuneration passes are defined as his heirs.