When considering the issue of author’s remuneration in the context of marital property relations, the basic issue that must be addressed is the answer to the question: in what situations and whether copyright property rights, including the right to remuneration, will be an element of the spouses’ joint property. Can there be exceptions to the rule expressed in Art. 33 point 9 KRO, according to which copyrights belong to personal property? As stated in Art. 31 § 1 KRO, upon entering into a marriage, a community of property (statutory community) is established between the spouses by virtue of the law, including property items acquired during the marriage by both spouses or by one of them (communal property). Property items not covered by statutory community property belong to the personal property of each spouse. The introduction of the marital property regime as a statutory regime was based on the assumption that it is a regime that better protects the interests of spouses, in particular the spouse who resigns from professional activity and devotes himself to running the home and raising children. The joint property of spouses is usually not limited to property, but also includes other property rights as well as rights of a relative nature (claims). It is assumed that there is a close connection between the concepts of “property” and “property”, in particular that they cover a set of subjective rights of a property nature. Statutory community of property will not arise if: the future spouses had previously concluded a prenup or one of them (or both) was incapacitated when entering into marriage. In such cases, there will be a regime between the spouses specified in the marital property contract or a regime specified in the provisions of the Act (compulsory regime of separation of property). According to the KRO, the personal property of each spouse includes: copyrights and related rights, industrial property rights and other rights of the creator. It is clear from the above-mentioned legal regulations that in the statutory community system, the author’s property rights are a component of his or her personal property. Community property and personal property include property rights, not the objects of these rights. However, the question arises how to treat remuneration – in some situations it is considered an element of author’s economic rights effective erga omnes, and in others only as a relative entitlement – a claim arising from contractual relations and being a consequence of the disposition of copyright. It should be noted that in addition to copyrights, personal property also includes the so-called “other rights of the creator”.
