How to License Music for a Public Performance: A Step-by-Step Guide
If you're determined to license background music for your business the traditional way (direct from rightsholders), here's exactly what that process involves. As a caveat, these steps are more involved than most business owners expect.
Assess your licensing needs (First Step)
Before contacting anyone, you need to know which PROs own the rights to the specific songs you want to play. This practically means building a list of every artist, album, or playlist you want in rotation. Searching each PRO's public repertoire database (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR each maintain one) to identify which organization represents which song. Accounting for the fact that individual songs are often split across multiple PROs, since co-writers can be affiliated with different organizations. For a venue playing a genuinely varied, contemporary playlist, this step alone can mean cross-referencing hundreds of tracks against four separate databases.
Contact the relevant PROs and CMOs (Second Step)
Once you know which organizations cover your target music, you have two options: (1) Get a blanket license from each relevant PRO, covering their entire catalog for a flat fee, the more practical route if you want broad flexibility in what you play. (2) License individual songs one at a time, by contacting the specific artist, songwriter, or publisher directly, usually only realistic for a very small, fixed playlist. Most businesses end up needing blanket licenses from multiple PROs simultaneously to have real freedom over their playlist, which means multiple separate applications, contracts, and fee negotiations running in parallel.
Understand fees, limits, and stay compliant (Third Step)
Interestingly, licensing is not a one-time transaction. Once licenses are in place, you're responsible for: (a) Fee structures, which vary by PRO and are often based on venue size, capacity, or usage (b) Renewal terms and any changes to what's covered under each license over time (c)Compliance monitoring such as keeping records of what you play and being prepared to demonstrate your licenses are current if a rights organization audits your venue (d) Staying within license limits like a blanket license from one PRO doesn't retroactively cover a song that later turns out to belong to a writer represented elsewhere
What this actually looks like in practice
Doing this properly, for a venue that wants real playlist flexibility, typically means engaging a lawyer or licensing consultant with music rights experience, negotiating separately with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR (and potentially SoundExchange for recording rights), paying upfront fees to each organization before you've played a single song, building and maintaining an internal system to track compliance, usage reporting, and renewals indefinitely, for as long as you're playing music in your venue. None of this is a fast process. Negotiations with multiple rights holders can take months, and for some businesses, years, before every piece is in place.
Let a platform handle it as alternative
A commercial background-music platform like Lobby & Lounge Music exists specifically to remove these three steps from your to-do list entirely. Rather than assessing rights holder by rights holder, negotiating PRO by PRO, and tracking compliance track by track, you get: (a) A single subscription that already bundles the licensing across the relevant PROs (b) A catalog where every track is pre-cleared and no manual cross-referencing required (c)No separate compliance tracking, because the licensing is handled at the platform level, not the song level. If you don't have the appetite for a multi-month (or multi-year) licensing project, this is the practical shortcut such as full legal coverage, without becoming your own in-house licensing department.
The simpler path
This is exactly the problem our B2B commercial music streaming service, Lobby & Lounge Music, is designed to solve. The value we create is obviously in our name. We currently partner with independent artists and labels who do not have the benefit of celebrity but have amazing catalogues spanning over 10,000+ tracks. These are real music from real artists at a real price. Every track available to play is already cleared across the relevant rightholders (recording/publishing rights), so you never have to cross-check. Your business is to save huge costs in music licensing while focusing on business operations.
In essence, copyright fees are not yet included in your subscription with us and you have to pay any copyright fees with your local PROs (ASCAP, BMI, GMR) once you’re streaming music outside our catalogue represented by these collection societies. Meanwhile, we are working towards expanding our catalogue in the very near future partnerships with the US. PROs so we can work in the PRO fees with one subscription. In the meantime, support Independent artists/labels with one login, one monthly fee and no per-PRO negotiation so you avoid wondering whether today's playlist happens to include a song that isn't covered.