Read This Before You Use Music In Your Wellness Or Spa Business

How To Legally Use Music In Your Wellness Or Spa Business

Playing music in wellness centers, health clubs, and spas gives business owners an excellent opportunity to create inviting and cozy atmosphere for their clients.

In this post we will look at 3 different options how you can legally play music in your place of business.

Mik

Hi, I’m Mik, a music composer, and in this post I will explain the basics of music licensing and give you three practical options to find and legally play music in your wellness or spa business location.

Music improves your clients experience

If you manage a wellness center or spa business, you certainly want to create the relaxing and peaceful zen atmosphere for your clients.

Playing some gentle soothing music is the easiest option to improve your clients overall experience.

Spas Are Better With Music

Some typical first choices for background music commonly include a radio, a consumer music streaming service, and a personal music collection.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of each option:

a) Radio

PROs:

It’s free and provides the never ending stream of music.

CONs:

You don’t have any control over what is being played and in what order.

Your clients will be exposed to commercial ads and other interruptions (DJ drops, news, and so on).

In certain cases you may be required to purchase a “public broadcast” license if you use radio to support your business (as opposed to listening privately for your own pleasure).

b) Music streaming service

PROs:

Consumer music streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, or Deezer have millions of songs, powerful search filters, and you can build your own playlists.

CONs:

Unfortunately, their terms of service do NOT cover commercial use, so you can only stream the music for your own personal entertainment.

c) Personal music collection

PROs:

Some of us have extensive collections of music on CDs or other digital media like MP3.

CONs:

Same as with the streaming services, you generally cannot use the consumer CDs or downloads for a commercial purpose without the explicit permission of the rights owner.

Mind copyright laws when you play music in your place of business

Playing music in spas and wellness centers is quite common. However, many business owners do not realize that they may need a special license to play music in public.

Even if you have membership with a music streaming service purchased all the music legally on CDs or as digital download, playing music in your place of business still may be not legal without the license.

Why?

All music (with the exception of old recordings that are already in public domain) is copyrighted and owned by someone. When you sign up for a streaming service or purchase downloads, you do not become the owner of the music. Instead, you are given a limited license to enjoy that music as a consumer, for your own personal pleasure.

However, when music you play the same music in your place of business, it is not for your personal pleasure anymore, it is considered commercial use.

It is there to help your business perform better and presumably to make more money. That’s exactly why the copyright law requires the business owners to compensate the artists if you use their music for commercial purpose.

A word of caution: the penalties for playing music without licenses are steep, typically ranging between $750 to $150,000 per infraction.

Where can I get the music to legally play in my spa?

There are three broad options:

a) Public domain music that is out of copyright.

b) Music created by commercial or independent recording artists. You will need a special broadcast license (more on that later).

c) Stock / royalty free music created specifically for commercial use in business situations. Typically, you need to pay a moderate one off fee to obtain the license.

Let’s examine each option in details:

Public domain music

Public domain music is not under copyright and can be freely used by anyone for any purpose, including commercial.

While this sounds like the best solution, finding the proper relaxation music that is of good quality and sound modern will be quite difficult.

Music by commercial and indie artists

If you want to use the ads free satellite radio, a streaming service, or even your own CD or MP3 collection for business purposes, you will need the public performance license from the performance rights organization (PRO) in your country.

The performance license is a recurring (typically annual) fee that allows your to use commercial music in your business space, including spas, resorts, and wellness centers.

The licenses are administered by the performance societies who in turn compensate the artists.

Learn more: More about the PROs and how to use copyrighted music in business places

Royalty free and stock music

Royalty free music libraries create music specifically for commercial use, so it’s much more easier to license music from a library compared to licensing it from recording artists.

When licensing music will be played to your clients and patrons, make sure to buy the music that is not affiliated with any PRO.

In this case, you will be able to use that music as background music your spa or health club without the need to purchase the public broadcast license from the performance rights society.

TunePocket offers a large collection of royalty free music for commercial use created by non affiliated composers, so you don’t need any additional licenses!

Helpful Tip

When using TunePocket music library, you can easily filter out all PRO affiliated music by using the special filter in the search:

No PRO music filter

NEW: Specialized streaming service

Based on the feedback we’re getting from our members, downloading music may not always be the optimal solution. At least not for everyone.

Downloading gives you the most flexibility. You can play the media from your phone, from your laptop, or any other device you wish.

However, sometimes a specialized streaming service can be a better solution.

IMPORTANT: You can’t just use any streaming service! You specifically need the service that offers streaming for commercial and business use.

Here’s one example:

MyRelaxation.Online – Stream unlimited relaxation and meditation music / sounds for personal and commercial use

Hope this helps!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post it below in the comments.

Unlimited royalty free music for commercial use

Have a question or comment?

Post a comment

Share This Post

Download 12,000+ Royalty Free Music Tracks And Sound FX

Unlimited download | Lifetime license | Commercial use

Start Now