Music on Hold Licensing in the UK: What Businesses Actually Need to Know

You have chosen a track.
It suits the brand, it sounds warm,
and it fills the silence while callers wait.
Then someone in the office asks the
question nobody wants to hear:
are we allowed to play that?

It is a fair question, and the answer catches a lot of businesses out. Music on hold licensing is one of those quiet compliance issues that sits in the background for years until an invoice or an enquiry letter lands.

The good news is that it is genuinely simple once you understand who owns what. Here is the plain English version.

Why music on hold counts as a public performance

When you play a recorded track to someone who is not part of your household, UK copyright law treats that as a public performance. It does not matter that your caller is sitting in their own kitchen. The music is being broadcast by you, on your phone system, to an audience.

That means two separate rights are in play:

• The composition.
  The melody and lyrics, owned by the songwriter and publisher.
• The recording.
  The specific version you are playing, owned by the record label or performer.

Both need to be cleared. Buying the track on a streaming service or a download store only gives you a personal listening licence, not a business broadcast licence.

Who collects the money?

In the UK, PPL and PRS for Music operate a joint venture that issues a single combined licence called TheMusicLicence. One application, one fee, both sets of rights covered.

The cost depends on how you are using the music. Telephone on hold usage is priced separately from music played in a shop or a waiting room, so if you already hold a licence for your premises, that does not automatically cover your phone lines. It is worth checking your existing paperwork before assuming you are covered.

What happens if you do not hold a licence

Enforcement is usually commercial rather than dramatic. You are far more likely to receive a letter and a backdated invoice than anything else. Even so, the reputational and administrative hassle is not worth it, particularly for regulated sectors where a compliance gap in one area invites questions about others.

The royalty free alternative

Most businesses we work with take a different route entirely, and it is usually the better one.

Royalty free production music is composed and recorded specifically for commercial use. The licence is bought once and covers the usage outright, which means no annual PPL PRS fee for that element of your on hold audio and no renewal to forget about.

Royalty free does not mean low quality. The commercial library market is enormous and includes orchestral, acoustic, corporate, cinematic and everything in between.

The practical advantages:

• Fixed cost. You pay once rather than annually.
• No renewal admin. Nothing to diarise, nothing to lapse.
• Better brand fit. You are not limited to whatever chart track happens to be popular.
• Cleaner mixes. Production music is written to sit underneath a voice, which commercial tracks are not.

That last point matters more than people expect. A pop song has a lead vocal competing directly with your voiceover. Production music leaves space in the mid range for speech to sit comfortably, so your message stays intelligible.

Practical steps to get compliant

• Audit what you are playing.
  Ask your phone provider or IT team exactly what audio is loaded onto the system. Many businesses inherit audio from a previous supplier and have no record of its origin.
• Check any existing licence.
  If you hold TheMusicLicence for your premises, confirm whether telephone usage is included.
• Decide on your route.
  Licensed commercial music or royalty free production music. For most businesses, royalty free wins on cost and quality.
• Get it in writing.
  Whoever produces your audio should be able to confirm the licensing position for every track supplied.
• Review annually.
  If your audio changes, your licensing position may change with it.

Where licensing meets everything else

Licensing is only one part of what callers hear. The music sits underneath your on hold messages, which sit alongside your welcome greeting and your IVR menu options. Getting the licensing right is the foundation. Getting the whole caller journey right is the opportunity.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Do I need a music licence if callers are only on hold for a few seconds?
  Yes. Duration does not affect whether a licence is required. If copyrighted music is played to callers, the rights need to be cleared regardless of how briefly.
• Does my Spotify or Apple Music subscription cover business use?
  No. Consumer streaming services explicitly prohibit business or public use in their terms. A subscription covers personal listening only.
• If my phone provider supplied the music, am I covered?
  Not necessarily. Some providers include licensed audio, many do not. Ask for written confirmation rather than assuming.
• Is royalty free music genuinely free?
  The licence usually carries a one off cost, but there are no recurring royalty payments afterwards. When we produce audio, licensed production music is included as standard.
• Can I use a track my employee wrote?
  Only with a clear written assignment or licence from them. Informal permission is not enough if the relationship later changes.

Final Thoughts

Music on hold licensing is not complicated, but it is easy to ignore until it becomes a problem.
A short audit now saves an awkward conversation later.
If you would rather skip the research entirely, that is exactly what we do. Every piece of audio we produce comes with fully licensed music, cleared for telephone use, with no annual fees attached to the tracks we supply.