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Business Music

Licensing and Compliance

Using music in a business is different from listening to music personally. Easy On Hold® helps organizations understand licensing requirements and use music legally for callers, customers, employees, and guests.

Licensing Overview

Overview

Business music requires the appropriate permissions.

Buying a recording, subscribing to a consumer music service, or hearing a song on the radio does not automatically give a business permission to use that music commercially. Music played for customers on hold, through speakers in a public business environment, or as part of another customer experience may require specific licensing.

Public Performance

Playing or transmitting music to customers can be considered a public performance, even when the audience consists of callers listening over telephone lines.

Music Copyrights

A song can involve rights associated with its underlying composition as well as rights connected to a particular sound recording.

Licensing Organizations

ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Global Music Rights represent different composers, publishers, and music catalogs in the United States.

Managed Compliance

A qualified commercial music provider can simplify compliance by supplying music under agreements that cover the provider’s approved business uses.

Personal Use vs. Business Use

A consumer subscription is not a business music license.

Consumer services are generally licensed for private listening. A subscription to Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Amazon Music, SiriusXM, or a similar service does not ordinarily authorize a business to retransmit that music to callers or play it throughout a commercial environment.

Purchasing a song or owning a compact disc also does not necessarily provide public performance, duplication, distribution, or telephone music-on-hold rights.

The relevant question is not simply whether the business paid for access to the recording. The question is whether the license permits the specific commercial use being made of the music.

Common compliance mistakes

  • Connecting an AM or FM radio to a telephone system
  • Using a personal streaming account for overhead music
  • Uploading purchased songs directly to a phone platform
  • Assuming classical music recordings are automatically unrestricted
  • Assuming “royalty-free” includes every type of business use
  • Using default phone-system music without confirming its license

Different Uses, Different Rights

How the music is delivered matters.

Music licensing is not a single permission that automatically covers every possible use. The rights needed can depend on whether music is streamed, copied into a file, stored on a server, transmitted over telephone lines, or played through speakers at a business location.

Music On Hold

Music transmitted to callers is a business use. The service and music source should specifically permit telephone music-on-hold applications.

Explore licensed music on hold

Overhead Business Music

Music played in stores, restaurants, offices, waiting rooms, showrooms, and other customer areas may require public performance licensing.

Explore streaming business music

Streaming Music vs. Music Files

There are copyright restrictions that apply to copying music files, and there are different copyright rules for content that is streamed live. Learn about the difference.

What's the difference: stream vs. files?

The Easy On Hold Approach

Licensed music without managing multiple agreements yourself.

Easy On Hold® specializes in music for business communications and commercial environments. Our services are designed to provide an approved music source while including the applicable music licensing and royalty costs within the service.

We support music on hold, caller queue experiences, downloaded phone-system files, and overhead streaming music. Our team also helps determine which delivery method is appropriate for a particular phone system, communications platform, or business environment.

Businesses receive professional music, technical guidance, and documentation from a provider that has worked with music licensing and telephone audio since 1997.

What to verify with any provider

  • The specific business use is authorized
  • Applicable licensing fees are included
  • The license covers the delivery method
  • The provider can document its licensing
  • The service supports your phone system or audio equipment

Resources

Business music licensing resources

Explore detailed articles from the Easy On Hold knowledgebase and blog.

Licensing Articles

Learn more about music licensing requirements, common compliance concerns, and the legal use of music for callers and business environments.

Hold Music Licensing: Real or Scam?

Learn why businesses receive licensing notices and how to determine whether their hold music is properly covered.
On Hold Music Licensing: Is Your Business Legal?

Review public performance requirements, common licensing mistakes, and a practical compliance checklist.
Music Licensing for Businesses: Real or Scam?

Understand licensing notices from performance rights organizations and the responsibilities of businesses that play music.
What Is Legal Hold Music?

Explore the rights that can be involved when a business uses a commercial recording on its telephone system.
Questions and answers.

Business music licensing questions.

Understand the licensing requirements for music on hold, overhead business music, consumer streaming services, downloaded recordings, and other commercial uses of music.

Yes. When music is transmitted to callers over business telephone lines, it is generally treated as a public performance. The business must use music under permissions that cover that specific use.

Consumer music services and radio broadcasts are not normally licensed for business music on hold or commercial background music. Personal subscriptions generally do not grant public-performance, reproduction, distribution, or telephone music-on-hold rights.

Purchasing a recording does not ordinarily grant the commercial rights needed to copy it onto a phone system, transmit it to callers, or play it publicly in a business.

Not necessarily. The license must specifically permit the intended business use, including public performance, telephone transmission, streaming, or file-based delivery when applicable.

ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Global Music Rights are performance rights organizations. They represent different catalogs of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and collect licensing fees for public performances of the works they represent.

Verify the sender, review how your business is using music, and examine the documentation provided by your music supplier. Consult a qualified attorney when legal advice is needed.

Not necessarily. Confirm that the provider agreement covers your exact application, such as music on hold, queue audio, overhead music, streaming, or downloaded files.

Easy On Hold provides licensed music services for approved business uses and includes applicable licensing and royalty fees within the service. We can also provide documentation related to the services we supply.

Legal Information Disclaimer

Easy On Hold® is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. The information on this page is provided for general educational and informational purposes only. It may not reflect the most current legal developments and may not apply to your particular business, location, music use, platform, or agreement.

Easy On Hold can explain the licensing included with its services and provide related documentation, but it cannot determine your legal obligations. Consult a qualified attorney for advice regarding your specific circumstances. Use of this website or communication with Easy On Hold does not create an attorney-client relationship.

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