Your Real Options: License, Restrict, Use a Covered Service, or Go Without Music

Most venues that play music owe public-performance fees. That is the honest starting point, and none of the moves below changes it by wishing. What the moves do is right-size the obligation or genuinely remove the use, and each one carries a real cost. This page lays out all five, what each actually costs to run, how each one fails, and the kind of operation each one fits. No option is "best." The right one is the one that fits how your venue actually runs.

The letters from ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or GMR are lawful collection by the copyright owners’ authorized agents, not a scam, and courts enforce the underlying right (17 U.S.C. §106(4); BMI v. Evie’s Tavern Ellenton, 772 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir. 2014)). So “make this smaller” has an honest answer and a dishonest one. The honest version is on this page. The dishonest version, hiding what you play and hoping nobody checks, is not a plan; it is the fact pattern courts read as willful infringement, which raises the damages ceiling instead of lowering the bill.

If a licensing letter or call is already in hand, the demand-letter walkthrough covers the response steps: how to respond to a PRO demand letter. If you are not yet sure you owe anything, start at the source question first: do you even owe, and to whom.

Before You Pick: The Doors Combine

The five options are not venue-wide either-or choices. Music enters a venue through more than one path: the main sound system, live acts, TVs, the patio, staff phones on the aux, private events, the jukebox, the hold-music on the phone line. One option rarely covers all of them at once. For many venues the realistic answer is a combination, a covered service for the dining room, silence on the patio, a separate permission for the monthly DJ, plus a short written record of the setup.

Two things travel with every option and decide whether it holds:

What this means for you:

• Keep a short written record of your setup (music sources, which spaces, the staff policy). It is what answers a licensing rep’s question, and it is what separates an honest, innocent posture from a willful one if a dispute ever reaches a court.
• The person who chooses has to be able to enforce it. “The bookkeeper handles ASCAP” breaks the moment a DJ, a TV, or a bartender’s phone quietly defeats the policy. Whoever owns the decision has to control the room.

Option 1: License, Right-Sized

What it is. A blanket license from each PRO whose catalog you actually use. No single license covers all of them: ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR are separate organizations with separate catalogs, and a blanket from one does nothing for the others.

What it really costs. For a small venue the annual fee typically runs from a few hundred dollars to the low four figures per PRO, scaled to capacity, square footage, and the type of music use (recorded background versus live versus DJ). As one real anchor: the license at issue in the 2026 Ottobar case ran roughly $4,800 a year for a bar with live and karaoke music. The actual rate structure and a side-by-side of the four PROs live on the cost page: which PROs apply and what a license costs.

How it fails. Paying one PRO and assuming you are covered, when your playlist crosses catalogs and you owe two or more. Being priced into a category that does not match your operation, paying for dancing, admissions, or live music you do not host, or under-reporting what you do host, which resurfaces later.

Who it fits. Any venue where music is integral and comes from mixed or unpredictable sources. It is the lowest-friction durable posture: pay the right PROs the right amount, and the exposure is closed.

Option 2: Restrict to Genuinely Exempt Broadcast Use

What it is. Operating inside the business exemption in 17 U.S.C. §110(5)(B), often called the Fairness in Music Licensing Act exemption. It is real, and it is narrow. The conditions are strict, and the strictness is the point. The full mechanics — the square-footage thresholds, the per-room equipment caps, and the prong structure — belong to the §110(5)(B) exemption explainer and screener; run the screener rather than guessing. The shape of the conditions:

• The source must be a broadcast radio or television signal from an FCC-licensed station (for TV, cable or satellite delivery of a broadcast station also qualifies). Recorded music, streaming, CDs, live music, karaoke, and a jukebox are outside it at any size.
• Small establishments can qualify on size alone; larger ones only within strict equipment limits, counted per room and including adjoining outdoor space.
• No direct charge to see or hear the transmission, no retransmission beyond the establishment, and the broadcast itself must be licensed.

What it really costs. Giving up recorded, streamed, and live music on that system entirely, and the ongoing discipline of keeping the source genuinely broadcast-only.

How it fails. Two ways. First, silently: a Spotify playlist or a CD riding the same speakers as the radio voids the exemption for that use, at any size. Second, expensively, through the “don’t guess” rule. Under 17 U.S.C. §504(d), a proprietor who claims a §110(5) exemption “did not have reasonable grounds to believe that its use of a copyrighted work was exempt” owes, on top of ordinary damages, an additional award of two times the license fee that should have been paid for the preceding period of up to three years. Guessing that you qualify, and being wrong, is more expensive than the license.

Who it fits. A venue whose music genuinely is nothing more than an over-the-air radio or television feed, and stays that way.

Option 3: A Verified Covered Service

What it is. A commercial background-music service that bundles PRO public-performance licensing into its subscription fee, so the service, not you, holds the PRO agreements for the music it delivers. Services in this market include Mood Media (which also runs Pandora for Business), Soundtrack Your Brand, and SiriusXM for Business.

What it really costs. The subscription, plus the verification work, which is the part that matters. Which PROs a given service’s plan actually covers differs by provider and plan, changes over time, and is never safe to assume from the brand name — a service can lack an entire PRO’s catalog, and the gap is yours. The current per-service coverage statements and the get-it-in-writing verification procedure live on the streaming page: verifying a covered business-music service. Confirming in writing that your specific plan includes PRO public-performance licensing for on-premises playback is the procedure that makes this option safe.

How it fails. The coverage reaches only the service’s own feed at the contracted address. It does not cover live bands, DJs, karaoke, TV audio, CDs, a personal Spotify or Apple Music account played through the same system, or events with a cover charge. A venue that buys the service and then keeps a live act on Fridays has closed one path and left another open.

Who it fits. Background-music venues with no live, DJ, or karaoke layer, where the service’s feed genuinely is all the music the room plays.

Option 4: Direct-Licensed or Owned Music Only

What it is. Playing only music you have licensed directly for public performance, or that is genuinely 100 percent owned by the performers, with no PRO-represented catalog in the room at all.

What it really costs. Living inside a strict checklist. The originals-only posture holds only when the repertoire is genuinely 100 percent owned by the performers: zero cover songs by any performer, and no jukebox, TV, streaming, recorded, or other catalog music anywhere in the venue. Any one of those voids it. The full treatment of the originals-only and cover-band question sits with the live-music page: live music, cover bands, and the originals-only question.

The “royalty-free” reality check. “Royalty-free” is a payment model (no recurring per-use fee), not a copyright status, and it does not automatically grant a public-performance right. A royalty-free or production-music library license is a contract with a defined scope, and most such licenses define “commercial use” as music placed inside content you create, a video or a podcast, which is a different thing from playing the track out loud in your space. It replaces a PRO blanket license only if two things are true: the catalog is genuinely not registered with any PRO, and the license explicitly grants public performance in a physical business. Plan tier matters (some libraries exclude in-store playback on their entry tier). If the tracks are PRO-registered, a royalty-free subscription does not substitute for the blanket license.

How it fails. A single cover song, a jukebox, a TV, or a staff playlist reintroduces catalog music, and the obligation comes back with it.

Who it fits. A genuinely originals-only room, or a venue running a verified direct-license catalog that actually covers every use in the building.

Option 5: No Music, Made Real

What it is. Operating with no public performance of copyrighted music at all.

What it really costs. The vibe and the revenue that music supports, which many owners underrate, and continuous operational control, because the obligation re-creates itself through ordinary daily paths.

How it fails. This is the option most pages treat as a one-line checkbox, and it is the one that most often quietly re-creates liability. The failure modes to shut off, one by one:

• Staff phones on the aux. A bartender plugging in a personal Spotify account re-creates the obligation the venue thought it had removed. Personal streaming accounts are not licensed for business use.
• Patio and outdoor speakers. Music carried to an outdoor space is still a public performance.
• TVs. A broadcast television signal can fall inside the §110(5)(B) exemption, but a cable music channel, a streaming feed, or a music-video service played on the same screens is a separate question and is not automatically covered.
• Private events and renters. A renter or promoter bringing their own DJ or playlist can put the performance, and the exposure, back inside your walls. Contract language about who controls the music matters here.
• Hold music and the phone system. Recorded music on a phone tree is a performance too.
• The jukebox. A jukebox is catalog music by definition — and a licensed jukebox covers only itself, never the rest of the room: does your jukebox cover your music licensing?

Making “no music” real means disabling inputs, keeping a source whitelist, a written staff policy, event-contract language, and an after-hours check that the policy is actually being followed. It is an operating system, not a decision made once.

Who it fits. A venue where music genuinely is not integral, and where control across shifts, staff, and renters is enforceable.

Forward, Not Backward

Every option on this page is a forward choice: it fixes what you do from here on. If a letter is already asserting past use, changing your music tomorrow does not erase that claim. The past-use question is a separate conversation, handled on the response walkthrough (responding to a demand letter) and in the mechanics of what unlicensed use can actually cost (how PRO enforcement works, and the damages math). Statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per work, up to $150,000 where infringement is willful, and as low as $200 where it is innocent (17 U.S.C. §504(c)). The gap between a few-hundred-dollar license and a five-figure judgment is the whole reason to choose deliberately now rather than by default.

Once a license is in place, the operating details (what a blanket actually permits, how reporting works, renewals, and the next PRO that may still call) are their own subject to work through with each organization directly.

The Honest Bottom Line

Most venues that play music owe public-performance fees. None of these five options is a loophole. The honest ones either right-size the obligation to what you actually use (Options 1 and 3), fit the use inside a genuine, narrow exemption (Option 2), remove PRO-represented music entirely (Option 4), or remove the performance entirely and keep it removed (Option 5). Each has a real cost, and for most venues the workable answer is a combination mapped to how music actually enters the room, not a single silver bullet.

Common Questions

Can a bar just not play music?

Yes, and for some venues it is the right call. But “no music” only holds if it is enforced across every path music can enter: staff phones, patio speakers, TVs, private-event DJs, hold music, and any jukebox. In practice that means disabling inputs, a written staff policy, event-contract language, and a periodic check, not a one-time decision. See Option 5 above for the full control list.

Is royalty-free music OK for my business?

It depends on the license, and “royalty-free” by itself does not answer the question. Royalty-free is a payment model, not a grant of public-performance rights. Read the actual license: it substitutes for a PRO blanket only if the catalog is genuinely not registered with any PRO and the license explicitly covers public performance in a physical business, and only on the plan tier that includes in-store playback. If the music is PRO-registered, you still need the blanket license.

Do I still need ASCAP and BMI if I use Pandora for Business or another covered service?

For the PROs your plan actually covers, no separate license is needed for the service’s own feed at your contracted address, because the service holds those agreements. But the coverage is plan-specific — a PRO missing from your plan’s list is not covered even for the feed, so confirm the list in writing (the streaming page shows how). And it stops at the feed: live bands, DJs, karaoke, TV audio, CDs, a personal streaming account, and cover-charge events are not covered and need their own solution.

If I stop playing music, do the earlier demands go away?

No. Stopping fixes the future; it does not erase a claim about past use. If a PRO is asserting performances that already happened, that is a separate matter from what you decide to do next, and it is handled through the response steps for a demand letter, not by changing tomorrow’s playlist.

Does one license cover all the PROs?

No. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR each license their own catalog. A venue that plays across catalogs, which most do, needs a license from each PRO whose music it uses. The cost page breaks down which is which.