Book Copyright Page Requirements in Poland (+ Free Generator)

What the Polish Strona Redakcyjna Holds

Polish books carry an editorial page called the strona redakcyjna, usually on the verso of the title page. For a translated title it names the original work, stacks the copyright lines for the original, the translation and the Polish edition, and closes with the ISBN and the edition line.

Poland is unusually relaxed about this page: everything on it is publishing convention, and the only legal duty in its neighborhood is legal deposit, a delivery of copies to libraries that most foreign self-publishers do not owe. Both are covered below.

What Is Legally Required

Nothing. Poland has no imprint law for books, so no statute obliges you to print a publisher name, an ISBN, a printer line or a copyright notice in a book sold on the Polish market.

The press-law impressum in article 27 of Prawo prasowe applies to periodicals and similar press printing, not to books, and copyright protection arises automatically without any printed notice. In practice you should still include the conventional page: it costs nothing and Polish readers and the trade expect it.

What Is Optional

Everything, in Poland's case. The convention is stable all the same, and a Polish reader expects to find:

• The original title line, "Tytuł oryginału: …".
• The copyright line for the original work, kept in its original English form.
• The copyright lines for the Polish translation and the Polish edition, written in English by convention (see below).
• The "Wszelkie prawa zastrzeżone" notice, short or with the longer no-reproduction sentence.
• The ISBN, one per format.
• The edition line, "Wydanie I", with city and year.

Trade books also credit the production roles (editing, proofreading, cover design, typesetting); add them if you have them, skip them if you do not.

The English-Language Copyright Lines

Polish books have a peculiar convention: the rights lines for the Polish edition are written in English even in an otherwise Polish book. Trade translations print "Copyright © for the Polish translation by …" and "Copyright © for the Polish edition by …, [city] [year]" exactly like that, while the reserved-rights notice stays Polish as "Wszelkie prawa zastrzeżone". The generator below follows the same observed practice.

Do You Have to Send Copies to the Biblioteka Narodowa?

For most self-publishers, and unless based in Poland, probably not. Legal deposit is a duty to deliver copies to libraries, not something printed in the book. The 1996 legal-deposit act defines a publisher (wydawca) as someone conducting publishing activity within Poland, and on the most natural reading of that definition, a self-publisher based abroad falls outside the act. No official guidance addresses the foreign print-on-demand case, so the point is not fully settled.

In practice you should publish without worrying about deposit if you live outside Poland, and send the Biblioteka Narodowa a voluntary copy if you want your Polish edition in the national collection. If you publish from within Poland the duty is real: print runs up to 100 copies owe one copy each to the Biblioteka Narodowa and the Biblioteka Jagiellońska, and larger runs owe two copies each plus single copies to fifteen further libraries.

ISBN Reality for Foreign Authors

The Biblioteka Narodowa runs the Polish ISBN agency and states that belonging to the ISBN system is voluntary. Its e-ISBN service is restricted to publishers located in Poland, so a foreign author cannot obtain a Polish 978-83 number.

This is no problem in practice. If you publish through KDP, as most self-publishers do, the free KDP ISBN works and prints the imprint "Independently published"; otherwise use an ISBN from your home country agency. A separate ISBN per format is the usual practice.

Print-on-Demand: KDP and IngramSpark

One trap is specific to KDP: Polish is supported for paperback and hardcover only. A Polish ebook is not a supported Kindle language and would be removed from sale, so a Polish translation goes on KDP as print, and the ebook needs another channel such as Google Play Books, Apple Books, Kobo, or Polish stores through an aggregator.

IngramSpark has no language restriction for Latin-script interiors and treats Poland as a Global Connect market with local printing. The printed-where details take care of themselves on both services: KDP adds its own final production page, so you do not add a printer line yourself. Neither service deposits copies at the Biblioteka Narodowa for you.