Music licensing has long been a source of confusion and frustration for small breweries. Increased federal attention to Performance Rights Organizations (PROs) could eventually lead to positive changes, but, in the short term, it might add to that confusion.

Note: Please don’t take any of the following as legal advice or as an official summary of legal requirements or current legislation. That said, I’ll do my best to provide some clarity.

Why is music licensing getting federal attention?

Answer: Because the proliferation of PROs is creating added complexity and expense for businesses (including breweries). There are no limits on how many PROs can exist, and new ones continue to emerge. Songwriters, composers, and publishers have a choice of which PRO they want to affiliate with. Songwriting is often a collaborative process, so many times you will have multiple songwriters writing one song and each may be affiliated with a different PRO.

If breweries want to ensure they are fully compliant for the public performance of music playing in their business, they technically need licenses from every PRO representing the music being played. That can become very expensive, particularly as a precautionary measure.

The U.S. Copyright Office acknowledged these complexities and issued a Notice of Inquiry related to PROs. This is an area where the BA government affairs team is actively engaged. Our focus is on improving transparency and making the licensing process more manageable for small business owners. Ideally, we would like to see a federally mandated database of all licensed works, along with a safe harbor that provides legal protection for licensed users (like breweries) that rely on that database.

Hot tip: If you work directly with a PRO, you don’t necessarily need a business streaming service to play music within that PRO’s catalog. For example, you could host a vinyl night or play personal playlists as long as the songs are fully covered by the licenses you hold.

I heard PROs are partnering. Does that mean I don’t need to work with all of them?

Answer: To give everyone’s favorite answer: it depends.

Sometimes businesses do need licenses from multiple PROs, but not always. For example, if you host Wu-Tang Wednesdays, Phish Fridays, and play Grateful Dead all weekend, you would likely need licenses from multiple PROs because those artists’ catalogs are represented by different PROs (BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC).

However, collaboration among PROs is improving transparency. Songview, a shared catalog database created by ASCAP and BMI (with upcoming participation from SESAC and GMR), helps identify which songs are represented by which PRO. Unfortunately, even with the pending expansion of the Songview database, it will not cover the catalogs of all PROs operating today.

Most importantly, ASCAP and BMI identify songs that are 100% within their catalogs. Many businesses license with multiple PROs simply because it’s unclear who controls the rights to a particular song. Greater catalog transparency helps reduce that uncertainty.

Technically, you could use this information to curate playlists that only include music from a single PRO, but songwriters do have the ability to switch affiliations when their annual contract with one PRO is up, meaning a song that was fully covered at one time may be affiliated with another PRO at a later time. A curated playlist would require regular updates to ensure it is still 100% controlled by the single PRO.

This becomes especially important with live music. Some brewery owners assume bands are responsible for licensing their music, or that the business isn’t liable if a band plays something unexpected. Unfortunately, neither is true. If music is performed at your business, the responsibility to obtain the proper permissions ultimately falls on the business owner.

Still, tools like Songview may create opportunities to be more selective with PRO partnerships as transparency improves.

I’m hearing from a PRO that isn’t involved with Songview. How do I know if I should license with them?

Answer: All PROs should be able to provide information about their catalog and who they represent. Asking a few questions can help determine whether their catalog aligns with the music played in your brewery:

• What are your top 50 most-played songs?
• Who are your top 20 songwriters?
• How large is your catalog?
• What percentage of the current Top 200 songs does your catalog cover?

Music licensing is evolving, and the details remain somewhat murky. The BA team is here to answer questions, so feel free to send them our way. We’re also working behind the scenes to help clarify and simplify the process wherever possible.

Learn more about the mechanics and requirements of music licensing here. And as a reminder, we’ve partnered with BMI to provide discounted rates for BA members – check out the details here.