Does Your Jukebox Cover Your Music Licensing? The Digital-Jukebox Trap

A licensed jukebox covers the performances that come out of the jukebox. It covers nothing else in your venue. The word "licensed" on your jukebox account does jukebox-shaped work, and the trap is assuming it does venue-wide work it was never written to do.

That assumption is common, and it is easy to see why. A monthly bill arrives from the jukebox company, the machine plays music all night, and the reasonable inference is that the music is handled. But the jukebox license is a narrow, specific grant tied to one machine and one counterparty. If your venue also has a band on the weekend, a TV with the sound on, or a phone plugged into the house speakers, those are separate public performances the jukebox license does not reach.

This page explains exactly what the jukebox license does and does not cover, why a modern digital jukebox can fall outside even that, and how to verify what you are actually licensed for.

What the Jukebox License Actually Covers

Playing copyrighted music in a bar or restaurant is a public performance, and federal law reserves that right to the songwriters and publishers who own the music (17 U.S.C. §106(4)). A jukebox performs those works publicly, so it needs authorization like any other music source.

The traditional way that authorization is delivered is the Jukebox License Agreement, a single annual license historically offered through the Jukebox License Office. The Jukebox License Office is “a joint venture of the United States performing rights organizations, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC” (Jukebox License Office Q&A, hosted by ASCAP). One license, all three catalogs, for the jukebox.

Two features of that license define its edges:

• It is box-only. The agreement grants a license to perform “by the ‘coin-operated phonorecord players’… and not elsewhere or by any other means” (Jukebox License Agreement §1(a)). The Q&A states it plainly: “The Jukebox License Agreement only provides authorization for jukebox performances.”
• The counterparty is the operator, not you against the PROs directly. The licensing party under the statute is the jukebox “operator,” meaning the person who owns the machine, places it, or controls the song selection (17 U.S.C. §116(d)(2)). In many bars the jukebox is owned and serviced by a separate vending or amusement company, and that operator, not the venue, holds the license; if you own your own box, you are the operator and the licensee. Either way, what you pay each month is the operator’s jukebox arrangement, not a license in your own name that reaches your other music.

A note on how this is administered, because it is changing. The Jukebox License Office model above is the structure to understand, but industry reporting indicates the joint Jukebox License Office wound down during 2025, with jukebox operators now licensing directly through ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC individually rather than through the single joint office (trade-association correspondence; ASCAP posted a standalone jukebox license agreement in August 2025). Verified as of July 2026; administration is in transition, confirm the current channel with your operator or each PRO. The scope boundary does not change either way. However the license is bought, it authorizes jukebox performances and not the rest of the venue.

What the Jukebox License Does Not Cover

The Q&A is explicit about the limit. If music is performed “by some means other than the jukebox (DJ’s, bands, tapes, etc.),” the establishment “will still need separate licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC covering these other performances.” Every music source that is not the jukebox is its own performance:

Two of those rows carry a specific correction worth stating directly.

First, the one size-based exemption in the statute does not rescue a jukebox or most of the rest of this list. 17 U.S.C. §110(5)(B), the business exemption, applies only to a broadcast radio or television signal, and only under its size and equipment conditions. It never covers a jukebox, recorded music, or live music, at any square footage. Whether a plain over-the-air TV or radio in your specific setup is exempt is worth checking against the actual conditions, which the §110(5)(B) exemption screener works through.

Second, the personal-streaming version of this trap is the same mistake wearing different clothes. A consumer Spotify or Apple Music subscription, or a track you purchased, is licensed for private listening, not public performance. Buying music “does not entitle the buyer to perform a copyrighted song in a public setting,” as the Q&A puts it. That version is covered on the streaming and recorded music page.

For everything in your venue that is not the jukebox, whether each source actually needs a license, and which PROs apply, is the source-by-source question worked through on the do you even owe on music page.

The Digital-Jukebox Trap

Here the coverage narrows a second time, and this is where a confident owner can be wrong twice over.

The Jukebox License Agreement covers “coin-operated phonorecord players,” a term with a precise statutory meaning: a machine that plays music from phonorecords when a patron inserts money and picks from a title list (17 U.S.C. §116(d)(1)). The agreement then expressly excludes the modern machine most bars actually have. It “does not cover video jukeboxes or digital jukeboxes,” defined to include any device that “receives and/or sends transmissions (i.e. downloads or streams) of musical works” or “employs a hard drive for the storage of digital phonorecords” (Jukebox License Agreement §2(a)). It also does not authorize any internet, webcast, or wire transmission of the music to people outside the establishment (§2(b)).

A contemporary networked jukebox streams and downloads from a central library and stores music on a hard drive. By the agreement’s own definition, that is a digital jukebox, and the classic coin-operated jukebox license does not reach it. The Q&A lists the same exclusions from the operator’s side: “video jukeboxes,” “karaoke jukeboxes,” and machines that are “downloadable or streamed” are among the performances not covered by the Jukebox License Agreement.

That does not mean a digital jukebox is unlicensed. It means the authorization for it comes from somewhere other than the vintage coin-operated jukebox license, and it is worth knowing which. The performing-rights framework for coin-operated players itself sits under 17 U.S.C. §116, titled “Negotiated licenses for public performances by means of coin-operated phonorecord players.” That negotiated structure replaced an older compulsory jukebox license, which Congress repealed in 1993 (Pub. L. 103-198, Dec. 17, 1993). So the label “jukebox license” points at a specific negotiated instrument for a specific kind of machine. A digital or video unit is licensed, if at all, under a different agreement that the operator holds. The practical consequence is the same as the main trap: do not assume the machine on your floor is covered by the license you picture. Confirm what the operator’s actual agreement licenses.

How to Verify What You Are Actually Covered For

Scope here is contractual, not something to guess at. Four questions resolve it, and none of them require a lawyer to start:

1. Identify the counterparty. Find out who holds the jukebox license, the outside operator who placed the machine or your own business, and get the actual agreement or certificate, not a verbal assurance. If a license certificate is displayed on the machine, note it — but rely on the agreement’s own text, not the sticker.
2. Read what the agreement licenses. Confirm whether it is a coin-operated jukebox license or a digital or video jukebox arrangement, and note that on its face it authorizes jukebox performances only.
3. Inventory every other music source. Walk the room: live acts, DJs, karaoke, TVs and radios with sound, phones or tablets on speakers, and any background-music subscription. Each is a separate performance.
4. Confirm separate coverage for those sources. The jukebox license will not cover them. What the rest costs, and which of ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR apply, is laid out on the which PROs apply and what a license costs page.

Unlicensed public performance is not a small exposure. Statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per work, and up to $150,000 per work where infringement is willful (17 U.S.C. §504(c)). A jukebox license is inexpensive by comparison, but it only closes the jukebox part of the risk.

Common Questions About Jukeboxes and Music Licensing

Does TouchTunes or my jukebox company’s license cover my ASCAP and BMI obligations?

Only for the jukebox. A jukebox license authorizes performances on the jukebox and, in the agreement’s words, “not elsewhere or by any other means.” A live band, a DJ, karaoke, TVs, or a streaming playlist over other speakers are separate performances that need their own licenses from the PROs.

I pay for the jukebox every month. Is that not my music license?

That payment is the license, or the operator’s license, for the jukebox. It is tied to that machine and that use. It is not a venue-wide music license, and if an outside company owns the machine, the license may be in the operator’s name rather than yours.

I only have a jukebox and no other music. Do I still need ASCAP?

If the jukebox is genuinely the only public performance of music in the venue, and it is properly licensed as a jukebox, that use is authorized without a separate blanket license for it. The moment any other source plays, a TV with sound, a phone on a speaker, an open-mic night, that source needs its own coverage.

Is my digital or internet jukebox covered the same as an old coin-operated jukebox?

Not under the classic Jukebox License Agreement. That agreement expressly “does not cover video jukeboxes or digital jukeboxes,” including devices that stream, download, or use a hard drive. A networked digital jukebox is licensed under a different arrangement held by the operator. Confirm what that arrangement actually covers rather than assuming it matches the coin-operated model.

I got a PRO letter but I have a licensed jukebox. Is the letter a mistake?

Usually not. A jukebox license does not answer for the venue’s other music, and PRO letters typically concern live performance, DJs, karaoke, or recorded music playing outside the jukebox. If a letter has already arrived, what a PRO letter or call is and what to do is the place to start, and how to respond to a PRO demand letter walks through the response.