In the United States, the rights to play popular music in a business are split across three main Performing Rights Organisations, and a license from one does not cover the others. This guide explains what each organisation covers, why most venues end up needing all three, what the combined bill typically looks like, and how a direct-license catalogue works as an alternative for background music.
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ASCAP, BMI and SESAC are Performing Rights Organisations: they administer the public performance rights of songwriters and publishers. Each represents a different roster, and their repertoires do not overlap. A license from ASCAP grants nothing over BMI's catalogue, and vice versa. Since a varied playlist of popular music almost inevitably draws from all three rosters, a business that plays music from their repertoires generally needs a license from each organisation.
A fourth organisation, Global Music Rights, administers a smaller but commercially significant catalogue of high-profile songwriters, and separately, master recording rights for digital transmissions are handled by SoundExchange. Composition licenses alone are not the whole picture: the recording itself carries its own rights.
The key point: in the United States there is no single music license. The cost question is always the sum of several licenses, plus the music source itself, which is a separate cost layer.
The figures below are orders of magnitude for a small, single-location business playing background music. Real fees scale with occupancy, floor area and music usage, and each organisation revises its rates periodically.
For a small business, the annual General license historically starts in the low hundreds of US dollars and scales upward from there. Venues that host live music, charge cover fees or run audio-visual systems pay materially more. ASCAP actively monitors commercial premises and pursues unlicensed venues. Current rates: ascap.com
BMI, the largest of the three by catalogue size, prices small-business licensing in a similar territory: starting in the low hundreds of US dollars per year, with fees that grow with venue size and add-ons for live performances, DJ events and karaoke. Music-intensive venues can pay many times the entry rate. Current rates: bmi.com/licensing
SESAC is the only for-profit organisation of the three and its catalogue, smaller in volume, is invitation-only with a high concentration of popular repertoire. Its minimums have historically sat somewhat higher than ASCAP or BMI, in the mid hundreds of US dollars per year for a small venue. Current rates: sesac.com
Adding the entry-level fees of the three organisations, before any GMR coverage or master recording rights, the combined annual bill for even a small single-location venue commonly lands above a thousand US dollars — and that is the floor, not the average. Restaurants with meaningful seating capacity, stores with larger audible floor areas, hotels with multiple public spaces, and any venue with live music sit well above it. On top of the licenses, the venue still needs a music source designed for commercial use, which is a further recurring cost.
And Spotify does not replace any of this. Consumer accounts on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music are licensed for personal use only; their terms of service explicitly exclude playback in commercial premises. A personal streaming subscription is not a music license for a business — full details in our guide Can I use Spotify in my business?
The legal framework recognises that catalogues of works outside the repertoires administered by collecting societies are a legitimate alternative for commercial venues. When a service provider produces music in-house or works with a catalogue that has never been registered with the PROs, the works are not part of the repertoires they administer.
This is the framework under which My Corporate Radio operates. MCR is a music streaming service provider for commercial venues. The catalogue streamed to subscribers consists of works for which the rights have been settled directly between MCR and the producers and authors involved. Those works are not part of the repertoires administered by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR or equivalent collective management organisations in other jurisdictions.
Emanuele Carocci, a radio broadcaster with over 20 years of professional on-air experience, works as a host on national commercial radio and leads the music curation team at My Corporate Radio.
The MCR catalogue is programmed under his direction with the discipline of professional radio: five editorial stations, each built for a context — the morning service in a cafe is not the late-afternoon shift in a hotel lobby, and the curation reflects that.
For a single-location business on the Background Music plan, the all-inclusive cost is £12.99 per month, billed in GBP$16.99 per month, billed in USD€14.99 per month, billed in EUR: the curated stations, the streaming infrastructure, announcements, and documentation of the catalogue's standing outside the PRO repertoires. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card. For multi-location operators, custom pricing is available at sales@mycorporateradio.com.
ASCAP publishes its rate schedules on its official website. For a small business playing background music, the annual General license historically starts in the low hundreds of US dollars and scales with occupancy, floor area and how the music is used. Because rates are revised periodically, verify the current figure for a specific venue directly on ascap.com.
BMI licensing for a small venue also typically starts in the low hundreds of US dollars per year, with fees that scale with venue size and add-ons for live performances, DJ events and karaoke. Current schedules are at bmi.com/licensing.
SESAC generally sets higher minimums than ASCAP or BMI — historically in the mid hundreds of US dollars per year for a small business. Rates depend on venue type and usage; current figures at sesac.com.
Generally yes, if the music played includes works from their repertoires: the three catalogues do not overlap, and a varied popular playlist almost inevitably draws from all of them. Combined, the three commonly add up to somewhere above a thousand US dollars per year for even a small single-location venue.
For background music specifically, a business can use a streaming service whose catalogue consists of works outside the PRO repertoires, with rights settled directly between the service and the producers and authors involved. My Corporate Radio operates under this model. A venue that also performs PRO repertoire will still need the relevant PRO licenses for that repertoire.
The Background Music plan costs £12.99$16.99€14.99 per month, billed in the matching currency. The 7-day free trial requires no credit card. Multi-location pricing via sales@mycorporateradio.com.
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Official sources for current licensing rates:
ASCAP: ascap.com/help/ascap-licensing
BMI: bmi.com/licensing
SESAC: sesac.com
GMR: globalmusicrights.com
Rate schedules are published and revised by each organisation and vary by venue profile. For the figure that applies to a specific business, always consult the official organisation directly.