ZAiKS and CISAC

CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) is a global organisation based in Paris with 230 member creative societies from over 120 countries. ZAiKS has been a member of CISAC since 1927.

The history of our international activities and participation in CISAC began in 1926 at the ALAI (International Literary and Artistic Association) Congress held in Warsaw. The ZAiKS delegates at that time were Kazimierz Wroczyński, Jan Stanisław Mar, Stanisław Ossorya-Brochocki, Nina Niovilla and Gustaw Beylin. The congress initiated cooperation with other global collecting societies concerned with the protection of exploitation rights for their associated authors. At the same time, the First Inaugural Congress of CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, was established in Paris in 1926. CISAC (Confédération internationale des sociétés d'auteurs et compositeurs) differed from ALAI primarily in that it focused on the management ofexploitation rights, whereas ALAI was principally concerned with legal and substantive issues in the field of culture. In 1927, at a congress in Rome, Kazimierz Wroczynski announced the accession of ZAiKS to CISAC.

Over the course of the last 95 years, our representatives have been actively involved in the affairs of CISAC. Warsaw and Krakow hosted, among others: CISAC Congress (1934), meetings of the Legal Committee (1958, 1987, 2017) and European Committee (1993), the General Assembly (2018), as well as many conventions of authors' councils and technical committees. Karol Malcuzynski was President of CISAC from 1980 to 1982 and Andrzej Szczypiorski was President from 1998 to 2000. The Legal Committee (CJL) is a statutory advisory body comprising 25 internationally-renowned legal experts providing guidance on copyright and litigation issues to CISAC member societies. It is one of CISAC's longest running committees, active since 1936 as the 'Legislative Committee' before changing its name to the 'Legal Committee' in 1967. Members of the Legal Committee have included Jan Brzechwa (1936-1939 as Chairman) and Professor Jan Błeszyński (1998-2007). Between 2001 and 2004 we were a member of the CISAC Board, which a few years later elected Rafal Kownacki, former Deputy Director General of ZAiKS, to sit on the key advisory committee of the Global Policy Committee. Director Kownacki was also a member of the CISAC Legal Committee until 2021.