Development of Crowdfunding in Poland from the Perspectives of Law and Economics

This paper presents the phenomenon of crowdfunding — one of the newest approaches to financing the production of cultural works. While being a rather revolutionary alternative to traditional publishers, record labels, and other cultural producers, crowdfunding poses several interesting questions that can be answered from the perspectives of law and economics. Taking the economic justification of intellectual property law as a starting point for the analysis, and employing the oldest Polish crowdfunding platform as an example, this paper attempts to explain the nature of crowdfunding. Since crowdfunding shifts the risk of the financing of cultural works from producer to consumer, attention is paid to the identification of possible consequences of this shift in risk–bearing. Theoretical analysis is illustrated with data gathered during research on MegaTotal.pl, the Polish crowdfunding service. Apart from that, the paper analyzes Polish legislation, which is responsible for the slowing down of the development of crowdfunding platforms in Poland.