Polish Government Commits to Free Licensing: A Victory for Open Knowledge

After nearly three years of advocacy by the Polish Wikimedia community and open knowledge activists, the Polish government has committed to restoring free and open licensing for its digital content. This marks a significant step toward greater transparency and public access to information in Poland.

The Road to Openness

Until August 2022, all content published on the Gov.PL portal—including text, images, and multimedia from government ministries and agencies—was available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0 PL) license. This allowed for widespread reuse, including within Wikimedia projects. However, without public explanation, in 2022 the government abruptly switched to a restrictive license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL), preventing reuse on Wikimedia platforms and limiting the openness of government information.

In response, civil society organizations in Poland, including Wikimedians, began advocating for the return to free licensing. Wikimedia Europe engaged directly by submitting Freedom of Information Act requests to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Digital Affairs, seeking clarity on the reasons behind the change and urging a policy reversal.

A Turning Point in Parliament

On 21 February 2024, the lower house of the Polish parliament (Sejm) convened a committee session on “Open Access to Re-use of Public Information and Data and Citizens’ Access to Knowledge about the State.” Local Wikimedians – Maciej Nadzikiewicz, Szymon Grabarczuk, and Łukasz Lipiński, were invited to participate in the hearing, with Nadzikiewicz presenting an expert opinion and insights on the impact of restrictive licensing.

Following discussions, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Digital Affairs, Michał Gramatyka, made a decisive statement:

“It is in my view self-evident that government content should be made available under open licences. Everything that is produced with public money should be made available for public use. I am a big supporter of open licences.”

Gramatyka announced that his ministry would begin coordinating with all government ministries to restore free licensing, starting with multimedia content on official government Flickr accounts by the end of this quarter. Work will follow on extending free licensing to all content, including the Gov.PL portal.

A Landmark Success for Open Knowledge

This commitment represents a major victory for the Wikimedia community and open knowledge advocates in Poland. It restores access to valuable public information and signals a broader shift towards transparency and openness in the Polish government’s digital policy.

We celebrate this success and look forward to seeing Poland reaffirm its leadership in open government data – having scored top positions in the Open Maturity Data ranking in the previous years. This achievement underscores the power of persistent advocacy and collaboration in shaping policies that benefit the public and support free knowledge worldwide.