
Regardless of what is right or wrong, the law as currently written is on the side of the owner of the music license and leaves little wiggle room for the bar and restaurant owner. Afterall, these music rights organizations have no idea exactly what songs you are playing, so how can they correctly pay the right artists any music royalty earned?ĪSCAP, BMI, and SESAC claim that the royalty fees they collect for use of their music is then distributed to the songwriters and artists appropriately, but this can be refuted or challenged by many an artist. Many bar and restaurant owners view this as a pure money grab or shakedown by these organizations. This often results in a demand for several thousand dollars to be paid or face a legal challenge.

They then check up on your music licensing to see if you are using a music service that already pays them licensing royalties, or if you are licensing the music direct from them.Įstablishments that do not have an existing licensing agreement in place are billed at a minimum of $750 per song played. You may have heard of recent enforcement by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC where they send their representatives around to bars and restaurants posing as customers and stay for up to several hours and make notes on what songs you have played in your establishment, either live or recorded. Unfortunately for the bar or restaurant owner, if you neglect to properly research the laws that pertain to playing music in your customer space, and just turn a device on and play what you want, you open your business to legal clams by music rights holders such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC that could be very costly if your are sued.

Why The Music You Play in Your Establishment Needs to Be Licensed

Let's go into more detail on what these organizations are and what you need to be aware of in order to make the best decision.

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