Music Licensing for Business in Sweden

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 STIM and SAMI.

Cafe Building in Stockholm with Outdoor Seating

Music Licenses in Sweden

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

  • record icon

    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.

Soundtrack Your Brand covers the first two licenses, and in Sweden, public performance licenses are obtained through STIM and SAMI.

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 Sweden

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 STIM and SAMI, please visit their websites to get your license.

3) Subscribe to Soundtrack

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

More Information about Music Licensing in Sweden

Overview

Music licensing in Sweden could be considered as more straightforward than in some other countries across the globe. This is because there are only two organizations that have a monopoly on collecting and distributing music royalties.

The Swedish Performing Rights Society or Svenska Stim, is regularly referred to as STIM - one of the primary destinations for a music license within Sweden. The other is SAMI, the Swedish Artists' and Musicians' Interest Organisation.

SAMI acts on behalf of artists and musicians who perform the music, whereas STIM works for the authors who write the lyrics and musical composition.

Contact

STIM

SAMI

IFPI Sverige

History

Operating since 1923, STIM is the oldest collective management organization in the Nordic region. They aim to establish the best conditions for creativity by making sure that strong copyright laws are in place.

As a non-profit member organization with over 100,000 affiliated rightsholders and music publishers, STIM has become an in important part of the music industry in Sweden. They ensure that writers, composers and publishers are paid for their work, but also support international growth for Swedish creators by licensing music across the globe.

SAMI is also a non-profit organization and has over 50,000 members. Most of their profit is sourced from the thousands of companies across Sweden that play music in their business.

Collaborating with IFPI Sweden, SAMI takes a 50/50 split to ensure that the rights of recording producers are also taken care of when collecting royalties for music performance.

How to get a license in Sweden

A wide range of license packages exist to suit the vast majority of business types that will require a music license. Each license will typically be valid for one calendar year, but can often be paid for on a monthly or quarterly basis. Cost estimates are easily accessed via the STIM or SAMI websites.