Music Licensing for Business in Poland

Playing music in a business is a little different from listening to music at home. Since you're playing for an audience with a business and commercial purpose, you will need different licenses from Zaiks and STOART.

Restaurant with outdoor seating in Warsaw

Music Licenses in Poland

Businesses need three different rights to legally play music in their physical venue.


  • record icon

    Recording Rights

    Recording Rights

    This covers the right to use a specific recording of a song and compensates the recording artist.

  • Music Notes

    Publishing Rights

    Publishing Rights

    This covers the right to use the original composition and compensates the songwriters and composers.

  • Open store

    Public Performance Rights

    Public Performance Rights

    This allows you to play the song in a public environment.

In Poland, public performance licenses are obtained through companies such as Zaiks and STOART. It is vital that you obtain the correct rights to use music in your business.

For information on music licensing in another country, please click here.

Soundtrack Your Brand

The Value of Soundtrack

We offer a licensed music service for commercial use, with great features such as scheduling tools and an explicit filter.

Soundtrack Your Brand is able to provide this via direct relationships with publishers, performing rights organizations and record labels (including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and more).

Our technology allows royalties to be fairly and accurately distributed back to music creators. Our Unlimited tier provides royalty payments that are approximately 5 times higher than those from streaming services for private use.

Playing Music at home

Unsupported Services

Services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Deezer are not suitable for use in business. These platforms are for personal, private use only - it is not legal to use them when playing music to an audience and you could risk being faced with a fine.

"You can’t broadcast or play Spotify publicly from a business, such as bars, restaurants, schools, stores, salons, dance studios, radio stations, etc. To play in a commercial environment, check out our friends at Soundtrack Your Brand."

Spotify Support Page

Steps to become fully licensed in Poland

1) Trial Soundtrack

Start our 14 day free trial to use our properly licensed business music service immediately. No payment or commitment required.

2) Get a Public Performance License

If you don't have licenses from Zaiks and STOART, please visit their websites to get your licenses.

3) Subscribe to Soundtrack

Select a plan and add your payment details to officially join Soundtrack.

More Information about Music Licensing in Poland

Overview

Music licensing in Poland has perhaps one of the more complex landscapes globally, as there are four different organizations that work to support music creators. While each organization does operate in the same field, each has a slightly unique focus. ZAiKS collects royalties for musical compositions, ZPAV collects royalties for recorded music and STOART collects royalties for audiovisual work. GESTOR is a little different as it does not collect funds, but does help to organize licensing agreements and copyright.

Contact

ZAiKS

ZPAV

STOART

GESTOR

History

Three of the four music licensing organizations in Poland are relatively new, having not existed until the 1990s. ZAiKS, Związek Autorów i Kompozytorów Scenicznych or the Association of Authors and Stage Composers is the exception, as it has been operating since 1918 when a selection of creators set out to protect the rights of creatives and their works.

ZPAV, Związek Producentów Audio-Video or the Association of Audio-Video Producers was founded in 1991 and is very similar in function to SIAE in Italy. In 1993, GESTOR, Giełda Praw Autorskich or the Copyright Exchange was launched to help facilitate music licensing.

The most recently formed organization is STOART, Stowarzyszenie Twórców Ochrony Praw Autorskich i Nowych Technologii or the Association for the Protection of Copyrights and New Technologies which was launched to protect audio visual works.

How to get a license in Poland

Businesses in Poland that make use of music, might need to arrange individual licenses with each of the four collecting organizations operating in this space. There is not currently a singular combined license available and so it is worth contacting each company separately.