PPL PRS - FAQs

Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, permission is needed from the relevant copyright holders in virtually all cases in order to play or perform music in public (broadly, this means in any other context than a domestic one).

On behalf of their many thousands of members, PPL and PRS for Music manage these rights in the vast majority of commercially released music available, and license the use of the music by businesses and organisations across the UK.

This means that, if you play or perform music at your business or organisation, you will usually need TheMusicLicence.

TheMusicLicence gives you the right to play and perform all the music that PPL and PRS for Music can license on behalf of their members and affiliated international societies.

This covers the vast majority of commercially released music available from around the world giving access to PPL and PRS for Music's millions of songs and recordings, including the most popular and well-known music.

Occasionally there may be music which falls outside of PPL and PRS for Music's control or for which you will not require TheMusicLicence. For more information, please visit www.pplprs.co.uk

The cost of TheMusicLicence for a particular business or organisation depends on a number of factors, such as the size of the business, organisation (and/or the premises they use) and the ways they use music.

PPL and PRS for Music each have a separate set of licensing tariffs, covering different sectors or ways of using music. The tariffs applicable to a particular business or organisation set out the relevant factors for calculating what TheMusicLicence will cost.

Things like the size of a business or organisation are measured in different ways under different tariffs, depending on what is appropriate for each sector.

So, to calculate your fee, we may need you to provide information such as floor area in square metres, number of employees, or venue capacity. We may also need to know the types of devices you use to play recorded music, and information about any live performances.

PPL and PRS for Music will continue to develop, consult and set their respective licensing tariffs separately from each other.

Those tariffs will be applied by PPL PRS Ltd when issuing TheMusicLicence to customers, but the launch of TheMusicLicence will not itself affect the costs under those tariffs.

The money is distributed back to the people who write, publish, perform and record the music.

Royalties collected by PPL PRS Ltd for TheMusicLicence are passed back to our parent companies, PPL and PRS for Music (after deduction of running costs).

PPL and PRS for Music each have databases storing details of millions of musical compositions and recordings. Together with a wealth of information about what music is being used by customers, this enables PPL and PRS for Music to distribute royalties fairly and efficiently to their members.

This means that, by purchasing TheMusicLicence, you are supporting the future of music by helping to ensure its creators are paid for their work, so that the people who write, perform and record it can continue making the music you love.