In today’s digital age, music has become an integral part of creating a pleasant atmosphere in businesses, from retail stores to offices. However, when it comes to using music streaming services for commercial purposes, the rules change, and what may be legal for personal use might not be permissible for business use.
Most people are familiar with services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, and so on but, we’ll delve into the legality issues surrounding the use of a domestic music streaming service for business use, and, explore alternative options to ensure compliance.
The Legal Implications of Using Spotify commercially:
While Spotify is a popular and user-friendly music streaming service, its terms of service explicitly state that the platform is intended for personal, non-commercial use. This means that using Spotify for music in your business, be it a retail store, restaurant, office, or any other public place, using it will violate the terms of service and is against the law. (See: https://support.spotify.com/uk/article/spotify-public-commercial-use/)
Moreover, licensing agreements between Spotify and record labels typically cover personal use only, so even with the correct PRS/PPL licenses in place, you still can’t use a domestic streaming service.
Playing music publicly, in a commercial setting, without the appropriate business-level product can lead to legal consequences, including hefty fines.
Pink Pinewood Ltd. have trained experts in this field and can help provide a tailored solution for your business.
Alternative Options for Business Music:
Fortunately, there are several legal and business-friendly alternatives to Spotify that offer licensed music for commercial use. Here are a few options worth exploring:
- Soundtrack Your Brand (formerly Spotify Business): Soundtrack Your Brand is a business-specific platform created by Spotify that provides licensed music for commercial use. It offers curated playlists and ensures compliance with licensing regulations.
- Pandora for Business: Pandora offers a business-specific solution called Pandora for Business. It provides customisable playlists and a diverse selection of music tailored for commercial use, ensuring legal compliance.
- Apple Music for Business: Apple Music has ventured into the business music space with a dedicated service for commercial use. It offers a wide range of licensed tracks and customisable playlists suitable for various business settings.
- Cloud Cover Music: Cloud Cover Music is a business-focused music streaming service that offers licensed music for commercial use. It provides features like customisable playlists, scheduling, and integration with popular business audio systems.
- SiriusXM for Business: SiriusXM offers a business solution that includes a variety of music channels suitable for commercial use. With a subscription, businesses can access a wide range of licensed music without worrying about legal issues.
- Sky TV for Business: For businesses with TV licenses, Sky TV for Business can provide your business with the ability to show MTV Music, MTV Hits, MTV 80s & MTV 90s & Freesat from Sky allows a one-off fee solution to show 4Music, The Box, Kiss, Magic, Kerrang!, Now 80s, Clubland TV & more.
- Radio: The most obvious choice for most businesses, radio can provide free music for businesses in a small portable solution and in solutions that work with your exisitng distribution system & with Pink Pinewood’s radio control system, you can even set timed channel changes to occur automatically.
- Moodi Music: Pink Pinewood can now provide a fully bespoke music solution for you, we call it Moodi Music, music that we can fit around your brand, activity, event – and more! We’re the only solution (asides from radio & TV) that can promise a delivery on clean music if you would like it – for example, you can choose to have clean music in a pub during the day and have the same music at night without this filter – all automated.
Conclusion:
While Spotify remains an excellent choice for personal use, but businesses are not allowed to use it at all for commercial purposes. Legal implications and potential fines make it a high risk for businesses to use and businesses need to explore a dedicated business music streaming service, that is specifically tailored for business use & compliant with copyright regulations.
Pink Pinewood can help businesses install the right solution for them. For larger businesses with music deployment systems for the public, such as pubs, clubs and indoor activity centres, we can help install a streaming solution to your exisitng distribution network, we can ensure correctly cerated playlists relevant to your brand and audience with a complete mindfullness to inappropiate language and texture to the content. For TV, we can install and deploy a centralised Sky TV for Business or a Freesat from Sky solution, with Freesat from Sky, you only pay for the installation once and the PRS/PPL & TV licenses thereafter – with the option to keep it running under our competitive maintenance rates.
We can also help businesses with poor internet connections or poor radio reception get connected to music through our new signal booster antennas – reach out to one of our experts today to find out more – 01473 561064.
*All quotes are non-obligation & site surveys are free.
