Slovakia’s songwriter society SOZA does not pay every broadcast minute the same: under its current distribution rules, a song with lyrics earns 6 points per minute of radio or TV airplay and an orchestral work earns 48. Streaming ignores that table entirely, so the same Slovak writer is paid by two different formulas depending on where a song is heard.
SOZA means Slovenský ochranný zväz autorský pre práva k hudobným dielam, the Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights Society. It collected a record €21.26 million in 2025 and paid €12.10 million to rightsholders, according to its 2025 annual report.
How the point table works
Every registered work is placed in a category by SOZA’s five-member Classification Committee. The category fixes two values: points per broadcast minute, and points per five minutes of live performance.
Each broadcaster’s payment is then split by points multiplied by minutes, under the distribution rules in force since 11 December 2024.
- P-1, simple composition or arrangement: 2 points per broadcast minute, 10 per live five minutes.
- P-2, instrumental acoustic or dance music for a small cast: 4 and 20.
- P-3, song with lyrics: 6 and 30.
- P-5, jazz for a small ensemble: 10 and 50.
- V-8, orchestral composition: 48 and 240.
- U-4 jingles and U-5 loops: 0.05 and 0.01.
On the same station, a vocal pop minute earns 50 percent more than an instrumental dance minute. Electronic and multi-genre work sits in category X, placed case by case.
Missing paperwork costs points
If the committee asks for more information and does not get it, the work drops to the lowest category of its genre. For a pop song that is P-1, one third of the P-3 rate.
A work that has not been registered and classified when a distribution is processed is left out of that statement altogether.
Foreign works are classified from CIS-Net and international work data. CIS-Net is the CISAC database that societies use to share work registrations, so a thin registration at your home society follows the song into Slovakia.
Streaming plays by different rules
For streams, online money is split 75 percent performing and 25 percent mechanical, and point values and track length are ignored. Each work is paid on what the service paid for it, or on play counts.
Since October 2019 SUISA Digital Licensing has licensed SOZA’s online repertoire, with Mint Digital Services handling administration, as SUISA’s Giorgio Tebaldi reported at the time.
Online income reached €3.55 million in 2025, up €1.13 million, against €5.85 million from radio and TV.
The device levy splits down the middle
Slovakia’s private-copy levy on blank media and recording devices brought in €5.39 million in 2025, more than online. Half of it is distributed by analogy to radio, TV and live reports, so the point table applies.
The other half is paid in four quarterly instalments, in proportion to each writer’s multi-territory online royalties. A streaming-only writer with no airplay still shares in that half.
The broadcast half is also weighted by station: a radio service scores higher for Slovak-language repertoire, classical and jazz, and writers under 30, and its songs inherit that score.
What to do with this
- Register with full detail. Lyrics, instrumentation and arrangement credits decide whether a work lands in P-3 or P-1.
- Check the category you were given. Under the rules, an existing classification is reconsidered only if the rightsholder asks.
- Clean your CIS-Net data if you are not Slovak. Your work is categorised from whatever your society shared.
- Register before the main distribution. Broadcast and live money for a calendar year is normally paid by the end of June of the next year, and no later than September.
- Do not expect classification to move DSP income. It does not, but DSP income now steers half of the levy pot.
Neighbouring societies run on similar paperwork clocks. The Czech OSA gives unregistered songs three years, and Poland’s ZAiKS is holding 205 million zloty for works nobody registered.
For labels delivering through InterSpace Distribution, DSP delivery and society registration are separate jobs. Complete songwriter credits at delivery make the second faster, and in Slovakia they also set the rate.
