How to License Background Music for Restaurants, Pubs, Stores, Hotels and Other Businesses

I’ve been reading about how music can help increase performance, productivity and efficiency in the workplace and that 71% of employees want to listen to music at work.

I discovered this when I learned some businesses are using my royalty free background music for restaurants, in pubs, hotels and shops so that they do not have to pay performance royalties licensing fees to performance rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI.

But in reality, most customers want to hear the latest hit music. In that case, for instance if you are in the UK, you will need to license music from PRS. Check out the PRS/PPL site for more great information on properly licensing background music. If you are in the US you can start at the ASAP licensing page and or go to the BMI site.

It turns out there is a legal requirement to pay royalties for businesses who play the radio, or music on music background systems, in order to lighten the mood, bring up morale at work or increase consumer retention.

A music licence for businesses is really not complicated, from what I understand there is a yearly flat fee that will be calculated by the performance right organization to use background music for stores.

If you are new to performance right licensing check out this great explanation from Todd Brabec, Vice President at ASCAP. I license my music via creative commons and do not charge these licensing fees, but almost all other commercial music in the world requires it, so its important to understand.

Related Articles

Court Lets Venues Deduct Fees From BMI License For Directly Licensed Music – techdirt.com

ASCAP Loses Its Anti-Digital Music Lawsuit – hypebot.com

Seriously? ASCAP Still Wants A Performance License on Downloads – paidcontent.org

Court orders music download license fee review – reuters.com