PPL & PRS: Frequently asked questions

PPL PRS is a new company, equally owned by PPL and PRS for Music. It has been created to provide customers with a streamlined music licensing service – TheMusicLicence – with a single point of contact to make it easier to obtain a licence to play and perform music in public. Previously, businesses, organisations and venues would have had to purchase two separate licences from PPL and PRS instead.

TheMusicLicence allows you to legally play and perform music in your business, including when it is part of the film exhibition and when it is used in other areas of your premises. If you play or perform music in your premises you will usually need TheMusicLicence. It will cover you with one licence for the use of virtually all commercially released music available, including millions of songs and recordings, from the most popular and well-loved music not just from the UK but also from around the world.

A multitude of parameters enter here: what type of business it is, what use is made of music (if it has a primary or secondary use), the surface of each business, capacity of the premises, musical repertoire, audiovisual repertoire... All these parameters can make rates vary. They can also vary from year to year. These rates are found on their website and can be consulted at any time. If there is any doubt, you can also contact them directly and request a quote. They call it THEMUSICLICENCE.

PPL & PRS has an online rate system, which provides legal data and indicates the procedure by which prices have been established for each type of sector. It also indicates where the money that customers pay goes. PPL & PRS Rates are considered high by many PPL & PRS clients. It is at this point where each user must decide if these rates and the use of music is convenient for the profitable operation of their business.

One of the most frequently asked questions is: If you pay for Spotify do you have to pay PPL & PRS? The reality is that regardless of PPL & PRS, Spotify does not allow use in public venues or businesses in its License. Spotify is intended for personal use only. Beyond that question, in the case of playing Spotify, you will have to pay PPL & PRS. Why? Because most of the music that people listen to is part of the PPL & PRS repertoire, and by playing these songs in a venue or business they would be generating rights that PPL & PRS has the right to collect and demand on behalf of its partners. In short: If you pay Spotify you will also have to pay PPL & PRS.

This is not the only case with Spotify. With other streaming platforms for listening to music, exactly the same thing happens: Apple Music or iTunes, Tidal, YouTube Music... With all these platforms, rights will be generated that can be claimed by the Copyright management organizations.

How to Avoid paying PPL and PRS? If you want is to play music in your business without paying PPL/PRS, you must use royalty-free music. What is royalty-free music? This is music whose authors have decided not being part of copyright management entities, to be managed in another way, or directly not to be managed. This is what we can call royalty-free music or PPL & PRS free music…. It is a legal and alternative solution that can save a lot of money for businesses.

Soundtoro.com is a great alternative to PPL & PRS and other copyright management entities of the world. We are not just offering a 14-day free trial, but we also have the best royalty-free music catalog. We have the best independent artists in the world, who have decided to manage their music in this way. Moreover, we can boast of the most competitive and adjusted rates in the sector. What are you waiting for?

The answer is No (as long as you don't use their repertoire). As an alternative to the PPL & PRS license, we invite you to start the 14-DAY FREE TRIAL in SoundToro.com. After 14 days you will obtain a certificate that you are completely exempt from paying to PPL & PRS. For this exemption, you must be able to prove that you are using royalty-free music so you need a certificate that attests it.

It must be emphasized that the PPL & PRS does not have sanctioning capacity, nor can it force you to sign any contract. HIt must be emphasized that the PPL & PRS does not have sanctioning capacity, nor can force you to sign any contract. However, if a inspector detects any irregularity and obtains the necessary evidence to prove it, it is very likely that the company or person carrying out the infraction will be denounced and a judicial process will be opened. This is a common procedure that occurs when music is used illegally in commercial spaces of any kind. So, is it mandatory to pay PPL & PRS? If you use their music, yes it is.

On the PRS website itself there is a section called "Searching Works" where you can check it. There you can look for any song or registered artist. However, we do not recommend trusting it completely; There may be artists or works that are in the registration process so they do not appear in that section yet but they are already registered.

This tool will help you to search for a specific artist or song and you may have the information about an artist or a song, but it will not help you to configure music catalogs outside of PPL & PRS, because, even if it were, we would need the specific license of the artists and creators of the music.

We recommend you to remove the television if you have decided to be exempt from paying PPL & PRS. All TV channels uses content whose works are fully or partially managed by PPL & PRS. Having the television indirectly means making use of the PPL & PRS repertoire.

On many occasions, customers tell us that they simply use television to watch news or similar. It doesn't matter, because in the end the news programs also broadcast content that can be managed both by PPL & PRS and by foreign "sisters" management entities. In this way, putting only news or football, would require to pay PPL & PRS. The bottom line is that if you want to avoid paying PPL & PRS, you'll need to remove the TV.