To legally play music in your business, you need permission from the copyright holders for every song your customers or employees hear. In practice, that means one of three things: a license from each performing rights organization whose catalog you use, a subscription to a commercial music service that bundles those licenses for you, or music that is royalty-free, in the public domain, or under a Creative Commons license that permits commercial use. A personal Spotify, Apple Music, or Pandora account will not do it. Those services prohibit commercial use in their terms.1Spotify Support. Spotify for Public or Commercial Use
Why Playing Music at Work Is a Public Performance
Federal copyright law treats music as a “public performance” any time it plays in a place open to the public or where a group larger than a normal circle of family and friends can hear it.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 110 – Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Exemption of Certain Performances and Displays Background audio in a clothing store, a playlist in a dining room, songs on a gym floor, and even the tune callers hear while on hold all qualify. The delivery method doesn’t change the analysis. Streaming, CDs, a jukebox, and a radio station can each trigger the requirement.
One trap catches a lot of owners: music played only in employee spaces, like a warehouse, break room, or factory floor, still counts. Coworkers are not a family or social circle under the statute, so a warehouse crew’s playlist needs the same licensing as a retailer’s showroom audio.3ASCAP. ASCAP Music Licensing FAQs
The One Exemption: Small Businesses Playing Radio or TV
Federal law carves out a narrow exemption for small establishments that play music from over-the-air radio, broadcast television, cable, or satellite. It does not apply to CDs, digital files, or streaming.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 110 – Limitations on Exclusive Rights: Exemption of Certain Performances and Displays To qualify, a business must meet every one of these conditions:
- No cover charge to see or hear the broadcast.
- Under 3,750 square feet for a restaurant, bar, or other food-and-drink business, or under 2,000 square feet for any other business, excluding only customer parking areas.
- No more than six loudspeakers total, and no more than four in any single room or adjoining outdoor space.
- No more than four TV screens, none larger than 55 inches diagonally, and no more than one per room.
Miss any threshold, or use any source other than a licensed broadcast, and you’re back to needing a license. Note that the square footage calculation excludes customer parking areas only. Storage rooms and kitchens count.
Getting Licenses From Performing Rights Organizations
Songwriters and publishers authorize performing rights organizations, or PROs, to license their catalogs and collect royalties for them. Four PROs operate in the United States: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Global Music Rights. Each represents a different roster of writers and songs, so a license from one does not cover songs controlled by another. A business playing a broad mix of popular music typically needs a license from more than one.
The application process is similar across PROs. You go to the organization’s website, describe your business type, square footage, and how music is used, and the PRO calculates an annual fee. ASCAP publishes its rates openly. A small retail store using background audio with up to three speakers pays $324 per year, and additional speakers raise the fee up to a cap of $2,715.4ASCAP. Retail Store Rate Schedule Venues with live music pay based on room occupancy and performance frequency, and the fees can climb into the thousands for larger rooms. BMI and SESAC each set their own rates.
PRO licenses are annual. They do not auto-renew forever, and if you let one lapse you lose the legal right to play that organization’s catalog. Put the renewal date on a calendar.
Commercial Music Services: One Subscription Instead of Several Licenses
If juggling separate PRO licenses sounds like more paperwork than you want, commercial music services exist to eliminate it. Providers like Mood Media, Soundtrack Your Brand, and Rockbot bundle the necessary public performance licenses into a single monthly subscription and handle the PRO payments behind the scenes.
Pricing depends on the provider and plan. Mood Media starts at $17 per month for basic background music and runs to about $40 per month for plans that include popular artists and AI-powered messaging features.5Mood Media. Subscription Music for Business Pricing Soundtrack Your Brand runs from $29 to $54 per month per zone on annual billing.6Soundtrack. Plans and Pricing Each location, and often each distinct zone within a location, needs its own subscription. The services also provide curated playlists and scheduling tools, which is a real convenience beyond the licensing question. For many small businesses, the monthly cost lines up with, or beats, the combined annual PRO fees.
Royalty-Free, Creative Commons, and Public Domain Music
“Royalty-free” does not mean free. It means you pay once, per track or through a subscription, and then owe no ongoing royalties for public performance. Prices range from a few dollars per track to monthly subscriptions covering entire libraries. Read the license before you buy. Some royalty-free tracks are cleared only for a single location, cap the audience size, or exclude use in advertising.
Creative Commons music is a separate category with its own trap. The distinction that matters is whether the license carries a “NonCommercial” restriction. Licenses labeled CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-ND, and CC BY-NC-SA all prohibit commercial use, which rules out playing them in a retail or dining setting.7Creative Commons. Commercial Music Licenses without the NC tag, such as CC BY or CC BY-SA, allow commercial use, though they may require an artist credit. Public domain music, where copyright has expired, has no restrictions at all, though genuinely public domain recordings tend to be older and may not fit every atmosphere.
Live Bands, DJs, and On-Hold Music
A common misconception is that the band or DJ is responsible for music licensing. They are not. The business hosting the performance carries the legal responsibility for every song played.3ASCAP. ASCAP Music Licensing FAQs Courts have consistently rejected defenses built on the performers’ status, including arguments that the musicians were independent contractors, worked only for tips, or were instructed not to play copyrighted material. If you regularly host live acts, your PRO fees will reflect that, and your city or county may also require a separate entertainment permit unrelated to copyright.
Hold music is the other easy thing to overlook. Songs playing through your phone system while callers wait are a public performance too. If you use copyrighted songs for hold audio, you need the same PRO licensing that covers your in-store speakers. The simplest fix is hold music sold specifically for telephone systems, with documentation confirming it is not registered with any PRO. If you want recognizable songs, verify that your PRO licenses or your commercial music service plan explicitly cover telephone hold use.
What Happens If You Play Music Without a License
PROs send representatives into businesses and use audio detection technology to identify unlicensed music. The first move is usually a letter offering you a chance to buy a license. Ignoring that letter is where the cost jumps.
A PRO can file a federal copyright infringement lawsuit. Statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per song played without permission. If the court finds the infringement was willful, meaning the owner knew about the requirement and ignored it, damages can rise to $150,000 per work.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits The letter you ignored becomes evidence of willfulness. On the other side, a business that genuinely had no reason to know it was infringing can ask the court to reduce damages to as low as $200 per work, but once a PRO has contacted you, that defense is gone. Those per-song figures add up fast: a single evening’s playlist can involve dozens of songs, each one a separate infringement.
Your LLC May Not Protect You
Operating through an LLC or corporation does not necessarily shield you personally. Copyright infringement is treated as a tort under federal law, and courts have held that the individual who controls or directs the infringing activity, typically the owner or manager, can be held personally liable alongside the business entity. The corporate protection that covers ordinary business debts generally does not cover intellectual property violations. That personal exposure is why getting licensed upfront, even when the fees feel like a nuisance, costs less than the alternative.