Public Performance Licensing refers to the legal obligations that businesses have to obtain permission to play music in a commercial environment. This is different from when you listen to music in a private environment i.e. at home or in the car.
Licensed music for your business.
Get the right advice from the authority in music licensing for commercial use.
Public performance licensing.
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What is Public Performance Licensing?
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What is One Music and why do we have to pay them for the right to publicly perform music?
Ownership of music can get very complicated. There’s the composer, the writer, the artist, the performer plus the record company, music publishers etc. It would be nearly impossible to seek the permission of every owner/stakeholder for every piece of music used in your business.
Performing Rights Organisations make this easier by offering licences for all the music in their repertoire and any music that is owned by similar organisations, globally.
These are called blanket licenses. In return for these blanket licenses, Performing Rights Organisations charge a licensing fee based on the way their music is being used. This is then distributed back to their members as royalties.
OneMusic Australia is the recently-formed body that represents the rights of APRA (songwriters, composers and publishers) and PPCA (sound recording artists and record labels).
The easiest way to see this is that APRA members write the music and PPCA members record it. Sometimes the same person or group will write and record a song and until recently would get royalties from both organisations. One Music has streamlined this process.
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Why aren’t my venue’s OneMusic licence fees included in my Nightlife subscription?
OneMusic requires each venue to have its own Public Performance licences, as every venue uses music and music videos differently, thus attracting different licence fees.
Nightlife covers the commercial licences needed to supply the music but each venue is responsible for its own Public Performance licences.
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What are my licensing requirements?
There are three main considerations when using music in a business:
- Music you intend to play must be licensed for commercial use – which is what Nightlife supplies (CDs, MP3s, consumer streaming services are for private use only)
- A licence to publicly perform any published music – Or
- A licence to publicly perform any sound recordings – Requires a One Music license.
It can get a little confusing but don’t worry, we have a team of licensing experts, who can help you understand exactly what your business needs.
