Video clips of Polish musicians won’t disappear from the world’s largest video sharing website YouTube, as they have done in the UK, after the website agreed a deal with Poland’s royalties association ZAiKS.

“The contract will be ready within the next few days,” said Andrzej Kusmierczyk of ZAiKS, quoted in the Dziennik daily.

He refused, however, to reveal any particulars of the agreement, especially how much the association is to be paid and how much the artists represented by ZAiKS are to receive, though this could be up to several million zlotys a year.

“I can only say that we don’t want YouTube to pay for each click, but just share a percent of the profits from advertisements screened next to each video,” said Kusmierczyk.

Signing the contract is perceived to be a huge success, as YouTube is viewed as a tough negotiator. Only recently the British and Japanese equivalents of ZAiKS, PRS for Music and JASRAC, failed to reach an agreement with the website. In both cases all promotional videos made in the two countries were blocked by the Google owned site. (jm/pg)