Music Licensing for Business in Spain

Playing music in a business is a little different from listening to music at home. Since you're playing for an audience with a business and commercial purpose, you will need different licenses from SGAE and AIE.

Charming Restaurant in Madrid

Music Licenses in Spain

Businesses need three different rights to legally play music in their physical venue.

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    Recording Rights

    Recording Rights

    This covers the right to use a specific recording of a song.

  • Music Notes

    Publishing Rights

    Publishing Rights

    This covers the right to use the original composition.

  • Open store

    Public Performance Rights

    Public Performance Rights

    This allows you to play the song in a public environment.

In Spain, public performance licenses are obtained through companies such as SGAE and AIE. It is vital that you obtain the correct rights to use music in your business.

For information on music licensing in another country, please click here.

Soundtrack Your Brand

The Value of Soundtrack

We offer a licensed music service for commercial use, with great features such as scheduling tools and an explicit filter.

Soundtrack Your Brand is able to provide this via direct relationships with publishers, performing rights organizations and record labels (including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and more).

Our technology allows royalties to be fairly and accurately distributed back to music creators. Our Unlimited tier provides royalty payments that are approximately 5 times higher than those from streaming services for private use.

Playing Music at home

Unsupported Services

Services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Deezer are not suitable for use in business. These platforms are for personal, private use only - it is not legal to use them when playing music to an audience and you could risk being faced with a fine.

"You can’t broadcast or play Spotify publicly from a business, such as bars, restaurants, schools, stores, salons, dance studios, radio stations, etc. To play in a commercial environment, check out our friends at Soundtrack Your Brand."

Spotify Support Page

Steps to become fully licensed in Spain

1) Trial Soundtrack

Start our 14 day free trial to use our properly licensed business music service immediately. No payment or commitment required.

2) Get a Public Performance License

If you don't have licenses from SGAE and AIE, please visit their websites to get your licenses.

3) Subscribe to Soundtrack

Select a plan and add your payment details to officially join Soundtrack.

More Information about Music Licensing in Spain

Overview

In Spain, there are three primary organizations that operate within the music licensing space. SGAE looks after the rights of authors and publishers. AGEDI takes care of the rights of producers and record labels. AIE operates to manage the rights of performing artists. It is possible that a business operating within Spain, may need a license from each of these organizations if there is music played within the company space.

Contact

SGAE

AGEDI

AIE

History

Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, or General Society of Authors and Publishers, is most commonly known as SGAE. It was the first of the three primary PROs in Spain, and was founded in 1899. AGEDI and AIE were both established much later, in 1989.

AGEDI stands for Asociación de Gestión de Derechos Intelectuales or Association for the Management of Intellectual Property Rights, while AIE is the shortened name for Sociedad de Artistas Intérpretes o Ejecutantes de España, or the Spanish performing rights society. Each of the three organizations have traditionally focussed on their specific area of music licensing within Spain.

How to get a license in Spain

If you are running a music-playing business in Spain, you will most likely need to contact each of the three music licensing organizations individually to obtain the correct licenses for your company. You can reach each organization by phone.