Prosecution of copyright infringements as a criminal offence in Slovakia

center dot The absence of an internationally harmonized framework for the criminal enforcement of IP rights leads to inconsistent approaches of national states to investigating and prosecuting copyright infringements as criminal offences. center dot This article analyses the judicial practice of Slo v a k national courts and identifies the current practice of sanctioning copyright or related rights infringe-ments through the instruments of criminal law, identifying numerous issues in this regard. center dot This article focusses, primarily, on the results of the criminal proceedings and the severity of the copyright infringements prosecuted in Slovakia and identifies issues relating to the application of the principle of legal certainty in court proceed-ings.