Transport Music Licence

Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, permission is needed from the relevant copyright holders – those who create, record and publish music – in order to play or perform music in public.

Broadly speaking, this includes any presentation of music outside of a domestic setting. For example, it will include using music in the following ways as part of your business or organisation (for the benefit of customers and/or employees): playing recorded music via any device including the radio, TV broadcasts such as sports or other audio-visual content containing music; or putting on live performances of music.

There are a range of tariffs to cover the different uses of music across various venue types. However, the use of this music will require permission from the copyright holders and TheMusicLicence will give you that permission, covering the vast majority of commercially released music.

If you are using commercially released music on your telephone system in your office or workplace, then you’ll usually need TheMusicLicence.

The music on your telephone system is being played for your customers and is classed as public performance. In some cases, PPL and PRS for Music have agreements in place with telephone on hold music suppliers who provide you with TheMusicLicence as part of the service they offer.

PPL PRS Ltd was created to provide customers with a streamlined music licensing service – TheMusicLicence – with a single point of contact to make it easier to legally play and perform music in public. PPL PRS Ltd is equally owned by PPL and PRS for Music.

PPL PRS Ltd started trading in 2018. Prior to 2018, businesses and organisations would have had to purchase two separate licences from PPL and PRS for Music instead.

PPL and PRS for Music are both collective management organisations. They issue licences and collect royalties for certain uses of copyright-protected music, on behalf of their many hundreds of thousands of members. They then distribute those royalties to members.

PPL represents record companies and performers for the use of recorded music, while PRS for Music represents songwriters, composers and music publishers for the use of musical compositions and lyrics (for both recorded music and live performances).

PPL and PRS for Music set up PPL PRS Ltd to offer a single joint music licence, on behalf of them both, for playing and performing music in public (see ‘What does playing music ‘in public’ mean?’).

You can play music at your workplace in different ways. Whether it’s playing background music for your office via digital devices or tuning in with workplace radio. You can play music in the following ways:

• Radio & TV
• Streaming services - this may require a commercial streaming service. Before using platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, please check that their terms & conditions allow for commercial use before playing music in your restaurant or café.
• CDs, MP3s & other recordings

We also license the playing and performance of music in other ways, such as live performances. To discover the different ways you can play music in your business visit our “how to play” section in the navigation.