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Christmas season is officially here and although the decorations may not be up yet, a lot of retailers and restaurants have begun playing Christmas music in their stores.
But beware. If you haven’t secured your public performance license yet then you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why. Licensing Fees are coming to town!
It's the season of giving but not everything is free
What is a Public Performance License?
This is an agreement between a music user (in this case, your company) and the owner of a copyrighted composition (the composer of a song) that grants you permission to play the song in public (your store).
It’s usually secured through an agency that represents the musicians/composers. The most notable ones in the Philippines being FILSCAP and PRM
So I have to pay licensing fees for playing Christmas music in my stores?
Yes, and not just for Christmas music. Any song composed by musicians who are represented by the collection agency is due licensing fees, a.k.a most songs you are familiar with, since FILSCAP and PRM holds the licenses of the majority of the world’s repertoire of music.
What happens if I play music without a license?
Representatives of FILSCAP and PRM may anonymously drop by your establishment and take note of the music playing in your store. This lets them confirm that you are playing this music without a license. They then send you a letter summarizing your offense. The consequences could range from a penalty fee all the way to imprisonment.
What can I do to avoid this?
If you play music all year round then the best advice we would give is to simply secure a license from FILSCAP and PRM (Note: we can help you with this if you need it. Just shoot us an email).
But if you don’t have the budget for this then you could always use Royalty Free Christmas Music.
These are not going to be the popular Christmas tunes your customers are used to but at least you don’t need to set aside hundreds of thousands from your budget just to play music.
Here are three websites where you can get Royalty Free Christmas music for free:
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