After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the entire Ukrainian nation faced the gravest challenges since independence, and culture was no exception, turning into yet another battlefield.
Indeed, alongside the obvious destruction of theaters, evacuated art collections, and cultural figures fallen at the hands of war, another, less visible yet no less significant destruction is taking place unnoticed by most. The copyright system, which had been undergoing a painful reform for years, has ultimately ended up in a legal vacuum. Collective Management Organizations (hereinafter – CMOs), the very institutions tasked with collecting and paying royalties to authors for the public use of their works, simply found themselves in a dead end. Authors receive no royalties, accreditation competitions are frozen, and the cultural sector, already drained by the war, is losing the thin financial thread connecting creators with society.
To begin with, using a direct example, it is necessary to clarify what Collective Management Organizations are and why they are so vital for the cultural sector.
I suggest you imagine that you are the author of a certain composition, and your song plays daily in hundreds of cafes, on the radio, in shopping malls, and in other places. By law, you should receive a certain monetary reward known as a "royalty" for each such use. However, as an author, you physically cannot sign an agreement with every restaurant or TV channel individually, and it is precisely for such cases that CMOs exist, acting as intermediaries between creators and those who use their works.
According to the Law of Ukraine "On Effective Management of Economic Rights of Rightsholders in the Field of Copyright and (or) Related Rights," a Collective Management Organization is a non-profit legal entity authorized by rightsholders to manage their economic rights. Simply put, CMOs enter into contracts with users on behalf of authors, collect fees, and distribute them among rightsholders.
This system covers several categories of rights: copyrights, meaning the rights to works by writers, composers, and poets; related rights as a separate category, which represent the rights of performers, producers of phonograms and videograms; as well as special cases, such as compensation for private copying, resale rights, etc.
It is worth noting that in most developed countries, CMOs are powerful organizations paying billions of euros to authors annually. In Ukraine, however, this sphere has turned into a chronic knot of all kinds of contradictions.
To understand current problems, it is necessary to dive into the historical context of the issue, since prior to 2018 Ukraine operated under an outdated system with a few authorized CMOs acting as virtual market monopolists.
The 2018 reform through Law No. 2415-VIII was intended to fix this. The document introduced a new system stating that CMOs could operate either in voluntary collective management, based on contracts with authors, or after obtaining accreditation in extended and mandatory management domains. In the latter case, an accredited CMO has the right to collect remuneration even on behalf of authors who have not signed a direct contract with it. Thus, it was the open accreditation competition determining the lead CMO in each domain that was supposed to become the heart of the new system.
However, even then, the core of this matter was not without a series of incidents that impacted the sphere so deeply that the first accredited CMOs barely had time to start working before the pandemic arrived, followed by new legislative changes, and then the war fell upon the fate of the entire country.
In December 2021, the Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 5572, signed by the President in February 2022, literally a week before the start of the full-scale invasion, which canceled accreditations obtained with violations, restarted competitions, and temporarily allowed all registered CMOs to collect royalties in voluntary domains. This was meant to be a new start and restart the royalty collection system, but instead became an indefinite freeze.
Speaking in the context of CMO accreditations, it is important to emphasize that Articles 15 and 16 of Law No. 2415-VIII clearly stipulate that CMO registration is carried out by the Ministry of Economy, while accreditation is granted based on the results of an open competition conducted by the accreditation commission under the Ministry of Economy. Accreditations are granted for a three-year term, and four months prior to its expiration, the Ministry is obliged to announce a new competition.
On paper, as is often the case, everything looks rather appealing, but as it is easy to guess, in reality everything happens quite differently.
In practice, since February 2022, all these processes have effectively halted. Competitions announced back on January 28, 2022, to select accredited CMOs in several public performance and public communication domains were interrupted, and no new ones have been announced since the beginning of the war. The accreditation commission, stripped of its powers by Law No. 5572 and meant to be restructured, remains suspended for years, and naturally, a fundamental legal conflict lies here. On the one hand, martial law is officially introduced in Ukraine, playing a key role, since this circumstance objectively complicates any competitive procedures, especially considering the final provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On Copyright and Related Rights," where the law itself prohibits holding accreditation competitions for collective management organizations during wartime. The state is focused on defense and government bodies are overwhelmed, but on the other hand, the lack of accredited CMOs in extended collective management domains means that TV stations, radio, streaming platforms, shops, hotels, and all others either simply pay no royalties at all or pay them voluntarily only to those CMOs with whom they have direct contracts.
The result in this matter is quite obvious, as a significant portion of authors receives nothing from radio stations playing their works round the clock, nor from various networks and platforms where author creations accompany clients, nor from TV channels broadcasting various works of art.
It is important to understand that this is not a hypothetical threat, but the daily reality of thousands of Ukrainian authors and a huge problem for the state, which loses millions in taxes because of this.
Attempts were made to partially resolve the situation. In October 2024, Law No. 4017-IX came into force, amending Law No. 2415-VIII, specifically excluding Articles 17 and 18 regarding certain regulatory aspects. The Ministry of Economy published updated information on the status of the CMO system in October 2025. However, the fundamental problem—the absence of accreditation competitions in key domains—did not disappear, as not a "cosmetic change" was needed here, but real action was required.
Currently, the state of affairs in the sphere is such that more than a dozen CMOs are registered in the Ministry of Economy's registry, each existing in a reality of expired accreditations, including: NGO "UAASP" (Ukrainian Agency of Copyright and Related Rights), NGO "VAAP" (All-Ukrainian Copyright Agency), Public Association "OKUASP" (Organization for Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights), Public Association "ULASP" (Ukrainian League of Copyright and Related Rights), and others. Each operates within its own specificity of work and bilateral agreements, collecting and distributing payments in accordance with current legislation and principles of integrity.
However, it must be stated that without an accredited CMO, the system resembles a market without any rules. Different organizations set different tariffs, enter into agreements with different users, conduct parallel negotiations, and even take cases to court.
Businesses in the form of radio stations, restaurateurs, and providers find themselves in a situation where several CMOs simultaneously demand payment for the exact same use.
It sounds paradoxical, but some of them receive claims from organizations with which they have never concluded a single contract.
The result of all this chaos is general distrust. Rightsholders do not know which CMO to trust with their rights, and users have no idea whom to pay and how much, while the state, absorbed by war, cannot give a clear answer to any of these questions.
Touching upon this topic, one would also like to address the factor of the relevant legislative framework designed to regulate existing problems.
Thus, in December 2022, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the new Law "On Copyright and Related Rights" (No. 2811-IX), which came into force in stages and is becoming an increasingly important component of the EU integration process.
It replaced the outdated 1993 law, updated the list of copyright objects, addressed new challenges, especially in the context of content created by artificial intelligence, and brought Ukrainian legislation closer to EU directives, but the updated law became a kind of framework.
As of January 2026, the fifth revision of this document is already in effect. Lawmakers are constantly refining the text, trying to catch up with technological and legal realities. The European Commission report published in November 2025 within the framework of Ukraine Report 2025 recognizes that Ukraine has made certain progress in the field of intellectual property, but at the same time directly points to unresolved problems, one of which is the inadequate functioning of collective management organizations and weak mechanisms for author remuneration payouts.
The European Union directly recommends that Ukraine improve the functioning of collective management organizations and royalty payouts to rightsholders, emphasizing the need to align with EU Directive 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market. This is an important signal, given that we as a state wish to become part of the EU single market.
In addition, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy declared updates to copyright and CMO legislation in its plans for 2026. This indicates an understanding of the problem at the legislative level, but intentions and real changes, as is known, are very different things.
It is essential, especially in such matters, to remember that when we talk about the "paralysis" of the IP payout system, we are referring not to dry legal terminology, but to ordinary people, ordinary authors who create art under modern realities no matter what, only to ultimately be deprived of what belongs to them by right.
A composer whose music plays in a supermarket while he himself is in a frontline city or at the front line suffers from this paralysis. A poet whose lines are read live on the radio but who receives not a single hryvnia for that broadcast suffers. A singer whose song became an anthem of resistance to the enemy also remains without a single officially recorded payout.
The situation is particularly painful against the background of the overall state of the cultural sector during the war, as mass events are prohibited or restricted, tours are reduced or impossible, studios do not work at full capacity, and authors themselves exist in realities of shelling, have gone abroad, or are defending the state.
For those who stayed and continue to create, and it should be emphasized that there are many, payouts could serve as at least some financial support, but instead this support is absent.
A system that in other countries is a reliable passive income for creators virtually does not function in Ukraine, while on the front of cultural resistance, this should be emphasized separately, the question of "whose music plays" acquires special weight.
This happens because the derussification of public space, adopted at the legislative level, requires filling broadcasts and platforms with Ukrainian content, but if Ukrainian authors receive nothing for this use, where is the incentive to create more? Where is the financial ground for cultural revival and cultural greatness that we strive for so much? And the main and most painful point in this aspect lies in the fact that no one prevents us from resolving this deeply internal, even to a certain extent political and strategic question ourselves. It is simply necessary to introduce a series of amendments to those norms, from which both the cultural world of Ukraine and its authors, as well as the state as a whole, will win.
The dysfunction of the CMO system is not merely an internal Ukrainian problem, and everyone should understand this. It resonates at the international level as well.
Leading global collective management organizations, such as CISAC and IFRRO, support a system of mutual agreements under which members of one organization in one country receive payouts for the use of their works in other countries. If there are no properly accredited and functioning CMOs in Ukraine, this complicates such an exchange, which allowed CISAC alone, officially for the past year, to collect nearly fourteen billion euros, which, unfortunately, bypass our country.
Again, the absence of properly accredited CMOs in Ukraine means that Ukrainian authors miss out on payouts that should come from abroad. At the same time, foreign authors whose works find their place in Ukraine are also left without part of the payouts due to them.
As a result, Ukraine risks the reputation of an unreliable partner in the field of intellectual property at an era when this very reputation is more important than ever, considering both the EU integration process and Ukraine's general position in the world.
It is worth recalling that back in 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative in its "Special 301 Report" on the state of intellectual property protection noted only minor progress by Ukraine in improving legislation regarding CMO activities. Eight years have passed since then, new laws have been adopted, yet systemic progress in law enforcement remains insufficient.
It should be noted that the problem is not that Ukraine lacks conscientious CMOs or interested authors. The problem lies in a systemic failure that accumulated over years and intensified during the full-scale war, and exiting this state requires several parallel steps that in reality are not so impossible to implement.
First and most importantly, the issue concerns the resumption of accreditation competitions. Even under martial law, the state is capable of conducting open competitive procedures in many areas, as evidenced by hundreds, if not thousands, of public procurements, personnel competitions, and grant selections. Restarting accreditation competitions for CMOs is a completely technically feasible task. What is required is the formation of a new, independent composition of the accreditation commission under the Ministry of Economy with clear rules to prevent conflicts of interest. Secondly, Ukraine needs to ensure transparency in this matter. One of the key complaints against CMOs has always been the opacity of fee distribution. Law No. 2415-VIII provides for reporting and control, but the mechanisms for their real application require strengthening. Authors must know how much was collected on their behalf and how much was paid to them. Thirdly, alignment with EU standards is needed. Directive 2019/790 and Directive 2014/26/EU on collective management of copyright define clear requirements for transparency, governance, and reporting of CMOs. Their implementation into Ukrainian legislation serves not merely as a bureaucratic requirement, but as a real way to improve the quality of the system, which also needs author protection during the transition period. Until the conclusion of accreditation competitions, the state could introduce temporary mechanisms to guarantee a minimum level of payments to rightsholders from large commercial users, which would not be a revolution, but simply a protective line for those who have not known justice for a very long time.
Yes… each of us prays to God for peace. Each of us wishes to fall asleep again in peace and quiet, knowing that one no longer has to ponder existence in a world of war, blood, pain, unceasing anxiety, and the absence of pure justice, and believe me, creators are in no way different from ordinary Ukrainians, because each of us is a part of a single nation… a nation with a single dream of peace, harmony, and justice.
Be that as it may, there is indeed something profoundly unfair for almost the entire nation in the fact that creators whose work became part of our collective national resistance are simply denied even the basic right to remuneration for their labor.
Everyone fights their own battle and fights as fate dictates. A song that gives strength to a soldier on the front line or a mother and her children in evacuation has value not only spiritual, but also fully material, and the right to this value is enshrined in law, except this very law is not being enforced.
The problem of collective management organizations is not purely a legal debate for narrow specialists. This is a question about what kind of Ukraine we are building.
If you and I want culture to be not just a resource of identity, but a full-fledged industry, as in the countries of the European Union toward which we are steadily moving, then the legal framework for this industry must work as clearly and confidently as possible, and most importantly, systemics—not only of the cultural sector, but of any element of state-building in general—must act not "tomorrow," not "soon," and not "after victory," but right now.
Creators do not demand privileges, but ask for what belongs to them by law, while the state that proclaims culture as a weapon of identity must ensure that this very weapon does not misfire due to simple legislative incapacity, but stands as worthy proof of the rule of law in all areas of Ukrainian law.
Author: Hryhorii Khoroshko
