Get permission to use music

You will almost certainly need to have a licence to play music in your business or organisation – this includes having the TV or radio on for your staff, customers or visitors and at events. You will probably need a licence from both PRS for Music (representing composers, writers and music publishers) and PPL (representing record companies and performers).

If you are from a voluntary organisation that plays music in a community building, PRS for Music and PPL provide a joint licence. Lots of useful information is available on their websites.

Musicians who want to cover somebody else’s work should contact PRS for Music, which protects the interests of composers, writers and music publishers.

If you are sampling music, you should contact the copyright holders directly. If the work hasn’t yet been recorded, you will still need to get the permission of the composer and lyricist (if there is one).

Get a licence

If you're using someone else's music in something you're creating (for example as a soundtrack to a video or to a programme you are making), you’ll need to get permission from the copyright holder. A good place to start is the last known music publisher for the work.

If you wish to use music on TV or radio then speak to PRS for Music and PPL; they offer blanket licences for many uses in broadcast and radio.

PRS for Music and PPL offer a Limited Manufacture Licence, which gives you 'blanket' permission to use any music in your own CDs, DVDs or videos (and other formats). It can be used for personal use (such as wedding videos) or for performances such as school plays and amateur dramatics. You should contact PRS for Music to find out more about the Limited Manufacture Licence.

If you wish to include recorded music in a TV or radio programme for broadcast, this may be covered by the broadcaster's PPL licence. PPL can also license businesses to copy recorded music in order to supply music services to other businesses (such as digital jukeboxes). Visit the PPL website for more information.

Go to the website

It’s against the law to share music publicly, even if you have paid for a copy of a piece of music. Sharing includes activity such as copying and distributing music - for example to email groups, via a file sharing website or by converting MP3 files to CDs and sharing them.

If you're going to use or share music (or music videos), online or use it in public offline, you should contact PRS for Music or PPL to get advice about whether you need a licence.

You may have to contact the record company that recorded the work. You can find contact details for record companies on their websites.

Numerous commercial organisations provide audio collections (music and sound clips) that can be licensed for a variety of uses. Paying for a licence doesn't mean the audio clip can be used without limitation so you must always read and understand the terms of a licence to find out what you can and can't do with it.

Getty Images has a music section on their website where you can purchase licences to download audio clips for a variety of different uses.

The content map contains details of legal online music services as does Music Matters.

More organisations will be listed here in later phases of the Copyright Hub website.

You should always try to find out who owns copyright for the music or music video you want to use, and get their permission to use their work. 

If you can't find out who the copyright holder is, you could try contacting PRS for Music or PPL in the first instance for more information about the musical works and recordings they license, otherwise, you can try the record company that has recorded the music, the music publisher or contact the Copyright Hub for advice.