More Considerations About Music & Your Home Business
In a recent post, Do You Listen to Music at Your Home Business,I mentioned the part music might play in your business…whether it’s one you operate solely on the Internet or whether you have a shop in your home that customers frequent. Sometimes you might play the music for your own enjoyment while you work. Or you might play music in your shop to add atmosphere and pleasant surroundings for your customers and yourself.
A reader called my attention to the fact that sometimes permission and payment is required when you play music where the public is involved. She said it may not be applicable to a home business (depending where in the world you lived), but when she owned a shop (not in her home) there was a license fee she had to pay to play music in public to cover royalties to the musician.
She also mentioned that if home business owners attended public events (fairs, craft shows, etc.) and played music, this fee likely could apply. The same could be true if they used music as part of a presentation.
This subject also has come up with regard to the trailers writers put together to promote their books. Many use background music and wondered how to go about getting permission…or whether there were any songs in the public domain.
Does anyone have experiences to share regarding the use of music with their business?
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POSTED IN: Laws & Regulations
2 opinions for More Considerations About Music & Your Home Business
Jennifer
Jul 1, 2007 at 11:33 am
Well, all I can say is, “say it ain’t so” or I owe a whole lotta bands some big bucks. I listen to music constantly when I work. Of course since I work alone know one would ever know. Uh oh. Until now. Geez are you trying to get me in trouble? ;)
Mary Emma
Jul 1, 2007 at 11:46 am
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for visiting my blog and raising your questins. I wasn’t referring to listening to music for your own pleasure while you work, or read, or cook, or clean, or play with children in your home. The reader who called this to my attention was referring to music played for your buying public and for public events you participated in. She had to pay a fee for that and wasn’t sure that it would apply though to a business operated in your home where you had occasional customers. Or when you were playing music in another room in your home and, without speakers in your shop, it could be heard in your space of business. Also, she mentioned that different countries could have different regulations. If you’re playing music from the radio, that would be a different matter. Another question, if someone were playing music CDs they are selling in the shop (like the one in Sedona), wouldn’t that benefit the musician? I purchased the CD after hearing it the flute music.
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