The arrival of NFT on the market has started to cause some new copyright problems. In national courts, we can more and more often encounter court proceedings regarding infringements of NFT copyrights. One of the more interesting examples of the importance of copyright in the context of NFT is Quentin Tarantino’s NFT. At the end of 2021, he announced that he would “mint” seven iconic scenes from the movie “Pulp Fiction” in the form of NFT. Each such NFT consists of digitized chapters from the original handwritten script, as well as unreleased scenes and Quentin Tarantino’s personalized audio commentary. The film studio Miramax, to which Tarantino sold most of the rights to the film, became interested in the case. However, the director retained the rights to the script. Miramax studio filed a lawsuit for infringement of their copyright because they decided that yes, Tarantino owns the rights to the script, but that NFT will use the brand owned by the studio, so it should benefit financially from the tokens. Currently, the case has calmed down a bit, because the parties agreed to a compromise in a private meeting and testified in court that they wanted to focus on cooperation and joint creation of NFT, unfortunately the terms of such a settlement were not disclosed.
“New times, new threats”. With this motto we can contextualize the outlook of the latest regulation on cybersecurity in the European Union, the NIS2 Directive. It substitutes NIS1 Directive, the previous EU cybersecurity rules from 2016. This one was reviewed at the end of 2020 and as a result of this review, the proposal for a Directive on measures for high common level of cybersecurity was presented by the Commission on 16th December 2020. The review showed that NIS1 had certain limitations. In a more digital society, new threats that were previously unnoticed or non-existent appear, and the old regulations, although they provided certain guarantees, are now obsolete. In particular, the Commission highlighted these main issues:
Insufficient level of cyber resilience of businesses operating in the EU;
Inconsistent resilience across Member States and sectors;
Insufficient common understanding of the main threats and challenges among Member States;
Neobanks are online-only financial institutions, similar to banks. Neobank’s offerings tend to be more limited compared to traditional banks – sometimes it is not more than a simple checking and savings account. Such a slimmed-down model often allows neobank customers to enjoy lower fees and higher than average interest rates.
Neobanks are companies that deal with financial technology. Their offer is only financial online services. They have no physical branches. Neobanks are attractive to technology-savvy customers who do not mind performing most banking operations via a mobile application. Such institutions do not integrate new technologies solely for the sake of being innovative. By getting rid of physical branches and moving everything online, neobanks often save on costs, allowing them to cut fees and expand services.
Digital Operational Resilience Act is one of the elements of the EU legislative package on digital finance, which aims to update the regulatory environment in the area of financial technologies, as well as to harmonize processes and standards of digital resilience in the entire sector, with particular emphasis on increasing resistance to upcoming cyberattacks in the financial sector, which over time are becoming more sophisticated and problematic. DORA aims to harmonize incident classification and reporting processes. Early incident detection and timely response are key. It is necessary to adapt to the new EU reporting rules, as well as adapt internal processes to optimize the allocation of resources.
The Regulation was designed to ensure that the operations of the European Union’s financial sector are able to withstand cyberattacks and operational threats, which means that institutions are to be able to stop or counteract cyberattacks by implementing best practices, such as data protection and planning future responses to such dangers. The Regulation thus introduces a number of harmonized obligations for entrepreneurs from the broadly understood financial market and entities providing ICT services to them (e.g. collecting, processing and transmitting information).
One of the areas of new technologies is the use of specific materials and textiles. It is worth noting that more and more clothing manufacturers are choosing methods of producing products that will be less harmful to the environment. Undoubtedly, the use of modern technologies in this field prevents the progress of negative climate changes to some extent. At the same time, it influences the positive perception of the brand among consumers, who more and more often consciously choose more ecological solutions, also in the case of fashion. Legal regulations, not only Polish, but also applicable to producers from European Union countries, specify what description should be indicated and contained in the label. Each manufacturer must put a mark or label informing about the type of fibers from which the garment is made. Such marking must be permanent, legible, visible, easily accessible and carefully affixed. The proper application of these legal regulations is controlled by the relevant market surveillance authorities – in Poland, this is the Trade Inspection and the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.
The development of the fashion industry is associated with the introduction of new technologies not only in the clothing production process, but also in the sales process or the logistics sector. The use of modern solutions is aimed at, inter alia, facilitating shopping for customers, and at the same time increasing sales, safety of individual groups and work efficiency.