Poland’s songwriter society ZAiKS was holding 205,368,024.53 zloty in royalties it had already collected and allocated but could not pay out as of 31 December 2025, money owed to 169,535 rightsholders who have not completed the step that releases it.
The figure comes from the society’s statutory activity report for 2025. At the National Bank of Poland rate of 4.3889 to the euro, that is about 46.8 million euros parked against named works.
Why the money is stuck
- The work was never registered, by its writer or by the foreign society holding the rights.
- A writer who mandated nobody has not confirmed authorship. ZAiKS collects for them anyway under the Copyright Act of 4 February 1994, without their contact details.
- Publishers are still clarifying percentage shares or sub-publishing terms.
- Court proceedings over authorship or co-authorship are unresolved.
- The user’s paperwork named the wrong party: a misspelled surname, a pseudonym the writer never registered, or an unidentified band name where the author credit should be.
A venue or broadcaster logging a set under a band name leaves the society with money and no payee.
The nine-month clock, and what happens after three years
Poland’s Act of 15 June 2018 on collective management gives a society nine months from the end of the financial year of collection to distribute and pay, under art. 39(2). ZAiKS reported 180,008,809.54 zloty past that deadline at the end of 2025.
Art. 39(3) suspends that clock while the delay sits outside the society’s control, including information not supplied by rightsholders or users. Art. 40 then forces an active search within three months, including publishing unmatched titles and names online.
Art. 41(1) redirects anything still unpaid three years after the collection year to social, cultural or educational activity, or to a proportional top-up for everyone else. Art. 41(2) is the part most writers do not know: the claim survives in full, settled out of later years’ unattributed revenue. Poland does not extinguish unclaimed songwriter royalties, which is the opposite of how a US digital-radio claim behaves. That bucket held only 708,056.52 zloty, all collected on or before 31 December 2021.
The calendar is the second delay
A correctly registered song still waits. ZAiKS publishes its distribution dates: multi-territorial music streaming services pay on 31 July for the first half of the previous year and 30 November for the second half.
A January stream therefore lands in an author account about 19 months later. Private copying, retransmission and commercial radio pay 30 November for the previous year, public television 31 August. Bars and clubs run on half-years, 30 April and 31 October.
Poland’s 2024 copyright amendment gave audiovisual creators an internet remuneration right, but not songwriters on music streaming.
What the pipe costs
ZAiKS deducted 134,168,983.00 zloty from 2025 rights revenue: 107,199,318.27 for collective management and 26,969,664.73 for its Social Fund. The society puts recent management deductions at about 16.5 percent, plus about 3.5 percent of gross for the fund.
Management costs come off amounts distributed, not amounts collected, so the percentage bites when money moves rather than when it arrives.
In one of Europe’s faster-growing music markets, rights revenue hit a record 617.6 million zloty in 2025. Distributions covered 293,601 rightsholders; direct payments reached 23,399 of them.
Three checks that clear most of the 205 million
Register the work and the name you release under
Registration through zaiks.online, pseudonym included, converts an allocated amount into a payable one. ZAiKS runs a dedicated claim page for works used on Polish radio, television or internet between 2020 and 2025.
Leave a payment instruction
A further 31,931,663.82 zloty was divided on time and placed at rightsholders’ disposal, then never collected. ZAiKS pays on the instruction it receives, so an author account without bank details is a registered work with no payout.
Document publisher splits before the usage, not after
Unresolved sub-publishing percentages hold money indefinitely, because a society cannot pay a share it cannot evidence.
Plan around the gap between the two sides of this pipeline. Recording royalties report monthly against ISRCs you control; the publishing side runs on a society calendar, a 20 percent deduction and a registration you file yourself.
