1Two separate problems
Playing a consumer service in a venue creates two independent liabilities, and fixing one does not fix the other.
- Contract. You agreed to terms limiting the service to personal, non-commercial use. Breaching them lets the provider suspend or close your account.
- Copyright. Separately, the songwriters, publishers and record companies hold the public performance right. They are not party to your Spotify agreement and are not paid by it, so their claim survives regardless of what you pay Spotify.
2What the terms of service say
Every major consumer service restricts commercial use in near identical language. The services are provided for personal, non-commercial use, and public performance or broadcasting of the content is not permitted.
Spotify itself sells a separate venue product through Soundtrack Your Brand, which was formerly branded Spotify for Business. That product exists precisely because the consumer app does not cover commercial use. It costs roughly £22 to £40 per zone per month, and it still does not include TheMusicLicence, which remains owed to PPL PRS on top.
3What copyright law says
Section 19 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 reserves to the rights holder the exclusive right to perform, show or play a work in public. A performance is public if it takes place somewhere open to the public, or where a substantial number of people outside a normal family circle are gathered.
A cafe, a salon, a showroom and a gym floor all meet that description. Two rights are engaged at once: the musical work, which the composer or publisher controls, and the sound recording, which the record company controls. So the question is never whether you paid for the music. It is whether you hold permission to play it to other people, and a consumer subscription does not grant that.
4How venues get caught
Enforcement is more systematic than most owners expect.
- PPL PRS employs field officers who visit premises, note what is playing, and photograph speakers and equipment.
- Your own marketing is evidence. Social posts naming the playlist, or a website mentioning the music you play, get cited in demand letters.
- Staff and former staff report venues, and so do competitors.
- PPL PRS can back-date a licence over any period you were playing music without one, and a demand that starts as a phone call becomes a claim if it is ignored.
5What it can cost
The UK has no statutory damages regime, so nobody can cite a fixed headline figure. That is less reassuring than it sounds, because the practical costs are open ended.
- Back-dating. PPL PRS prices every period you were playing without a licence, at the tariff that applied to your premises then.
- Damages or an account of profits. A court awards the loss, or the profit the infringement produced, and can add interest.
- Legal costs. Both sides' costs of a claim reach the losing party.
- An injunction. The end point is a court order that stops the music altogether until you are licensed.
The multiplier still applies on the back-dating. An officer who logs eight songs during one visit has evidence of an unlicensed period covering every day you traded, not just that afternoon. Continuing after a written warning is the clearest route to an expensive outcome, so ignoring the first letter is the most expensive move available.
6The radio myth
The belief that "the radio is fine" comes from other countries, where small premises can play ordinary broadcast radio without a licence. There is no such exemption in the UK. The two provisions that once came closest, sections 67 and 72(1B)(a) of the 1988 Act, are both repealed, the latter by regulation 4(1) of SI 2010/2694.
Today, playing even a single broadcast radio where the public can hear it needs TheMusicLicence. PPL PRS's own published price examples are full of "via radio" tariffs, such as a shop of up to 50 square metres at £235.50 a year ex VAT for exactly that setup. A licence is required, and those figures are the floor, not the exemption.
A Spotify playlist, a phone plugged into the amplifier or an internet radio station is not broadcast at all, so it never even gets to the radio tariff. It is an unlicensed public performance, plain and simple. Full detail is in our music licensing guide.
7What to use instead
| Route | Trade-off |
|---|---|
| TheMusicLicence alone | Full mainstream repertoire. Published examples run £168.71 to £400.81 a year ex VAT for small premises, and no music is actually supplied. You source and schedule it yourself, legally. |
| Mainstream commercial streaming | Chart music included and licensed for business play, about £22 to £40 per zone per month, but TheMusicLicence is still owed on top. |
| Licensed at source | Music licensed directly outside the PPL and PRS repertoires, so no public performance royalty exists. One flat annual fee, £179 for RadioB2B. Not chart music. |
Which one fits depends on whether your customers need to recognise the songs. Most venues do not need recognisable hits, they need the right atmosphere at a predictable cost.
Legal music, without the licence relationship
RadioB2B gives you 1,200+ curated stations and background music video channels for a flat £179 a year, with a Music Licence Certificate you can hand to anyone who asks. Nothing in the catalogue is registered with PRS for Music or PPL.
8Questions
What if I use my personal account on my own phone?
Whose account and whose device is irrelevant. What matters is that the performance is public. A staff member's personal Spotify through the venue's speakers is the same infringement.
What about a TV showing a music channel?
A television playing broadcast programmes falls under the same rule as broadcast radio: it needs TheMusicLicence, and there is no small premises carve-out in the UK. Streaming music video services are a further problem on top, because they are not broadcast at all.
Does Spotify for Artists or a promo account help?
No. Neither grants public performance rights to a venue.
We are a small shop, surely nobody cares?
Small premises are routinely contacted. PPL PRS's published examples start at a shop of 50 square metres with one portable radio, and back-dating makes a first visit expensive even for a single room.
General information only, not legal advice. The public performance right is as set out in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Licence figures are PPL PRS published examples, ex VAT, taken from pplprs.co.uk and current as of February 2026. See our Terms of Use.