Hospitality

Under New Zealand law you need permission from music creators to use their music in your business. 

This permission is required regardless of how you play music – whether you play the radio, TV, CDs, or use digital music services such as Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube. Simply buying music or paying for a subscription service does not give you the permission you need to play music in a business setting. Your OneMusic licence gives you permission to play essentially all commercially released music from here and around the world. 

All businesses that play music, from cafes, bars and nightclubs to retail stores, gyms, hairdressers and pharmacies, need permission from music creators to play their music.

Simply buying music does not provide the rights to use this music in a commercial or public setting. Music is sold for private/domestic use, so any use of this music by a business or organisation is a public performance that requires licensing. This includes music in all forms, from live music, to digital music services, even talkback radio and sports on TV.

Yes it is. The Copyright Act clearly establishes these public performance rights. The Copyright Act also outlines the penalties for anyone in breach of the Act.

The OneMusic licence covers you for the use of our music in your business regardless of the source – whether it’s from radio, CDs, or a digital music service.

You should be aware that a OneMusic licence, even when it includes Digital Delivery only gives you permission to use our music in your business. It does not override the Terms of Use for the personal digital music service, nor does it give you permission to use that particular digital music service for a commercial purpose – that permission can only come from the owners of that digital music service.

Even with our licence, the use of digital music services by you in your business may be in breach of the terms and conditions of your end user agreement with that service. You should check with your service provider.

OneMusic is a joint licensing initiative between APRA AMCOS and Recorded Music NZ. Many music creators around the world earn an income by granting organisations, like ours, the right to collect and pay their royalties.

OneMusic simplifies the licensing process and allows music users to meet their copyright obligations to play our music in their business.

When you hear about music royalties, that’s what we do.

Your OneMusic licence fee is distributed by APRA AMCOS and Recorded Music NZ, who are the companies behind OneMusic. Each organisation has a commitment to their music creators and their own distribution policies.

Every month over 330 million lines of music data is analysed from digital music services, background music suppliers, radio stations, television stations, live performers and more. After minimal administration costs all money collected is paid to our local and international music creators – songwriters, composers, publishers, recording artists and record labels.

Find out more from APRA AMCOS and Recorded Music NZ.

Find out more about why you need a licence and the authenticity of our rights from other industry and government bodies and New Zealand associations.

For all performances with an advertised ticket price or entry fee of $35 or more, event licences are required for each event.

For performances that are live only (for example a live band) an APRA event licence is required. For events that include both live music and recorded music (for example bands and DJs), a licence is required from both APRA for the rights to perform musical works, and Recorded Music NZ for the rights to perform sound recordings. 

Click here to view our Fact Sheet.