ZPAV was officially founded on July 11, 1991, following the recognition of the IFPI given in June of that year. In February 1995, ZPAV was authorized by the Polish Ministry of Culture to act as a rights management organization in the field of phonogram and :wikt:videogram|videogram producers' rights. This was followed in December with the right to collect a share of the 3% blank media tax, in the name of the producers. 1995 also marked the beginning of awarding music awards by ZPAV. The first gold and platinum awards were granted by ZPAV in February 1995. The Fryderyk annual award was presented for the first time in March. In 1996, ZPAV started signing agreements about collecting commissions for the broadcasting of sound recordings. Agreements with Telewizja Polska and the main commercial radio stations were signed in 1997 and with Polskie Radioin 1999. Agreements with other commercial premises where music is played were signed starting in 2002. Commissions were first distributed to the producers in 1998. In 1998, together with the Foundation for the Protection of Audiovisual Works and the Business Software Alliance, ZPAV found the Anti-Piracy Coalition. In 2000, ZPAV published the first official Polish record chart, OLiS. Airplay monitoring starts when an agreement with Nielsen Music Control is signed in 2006.
Sales charts
ZPAV publishes two official album charts, OLiS, a weekly chart based on retail sales data, and Top 100, a monthly chart based on data received from the album companies. It also publishes the Official Polish Airplay Chart, provided by Nielsen Music Control Airplay Services and charts of songs most listened to in stores and discothèques.
Certifications and awards
Sales certifications
The first gold and platinum awards were granted by ZPAV in February 1995, gold to Marysia Biesiadna by Maryla Rodowicz and platinum to Three Tenors Live by The Three Tenors. The diamond award was first presented in July 2000 to Kayah i Bregović by Serbian musician Goran Bregović and Polish singer Kayah. The current certification thresholds are as follows. The main numbers are for releases since July 2005, and the thresholds for releases prior to that are in parenthesis. ZPAV also awards multiple Platinum awards, up to the amount which rewards a Diamond award. For boxed sets, each piece in the set counts as one unit. The awards also take into account digital downloads, where ten downloads of any title in the album count as an album sold. An archive of all the certifications awarded by ZPAV is available at the website. Note that the thresholds above were set some time in the 2000s. For instance, at last until August 2003 there were no different thresholds for foreign and Polish material. Furthermore, the threshold for albums at least until September 2001 were different, namely 50,000 for gold, 100,000 for Platinum and 500,000 for Diamond.
The Fryderyk
The Fryderyk is the annual award in Polish music. Its status in the Polish public can be compared to the AmericanGrammy and the UK's BRIT Award. The Fryderyk was established by ZPAV in 1994 and presented for the first time in 1995. Since 1999, nominees and winners have been selected by the Phonographic Academy which was founded by the General Assembly of ZPAV in 1998 and now consists of nearly 1000 artists, creators, journalists. Since 2007 it is organized by STX Records.
Since 2010 ZPAV also awards a "Digital Song of the Year" award, which is awarded to the best selling digital song in two categories, Polish songs and foreign songs. The 2010 winners were the Polish "Nie mogę Cię zapomnieć" by Agnieszka Chylińska and the foreign "Womanizer" by Britney Spears. The 2011 winners were the Polish "Nie pytaj mnie" by Ala Boratyn and the foreign "Waka waka" by Shakira.
