Do you play music in your place of business? Here’s what you need to know

If you want to broadcast music in full legality in places like restaurants, bars, waiting rooms, salons, you will need to obtain a user license for music in ambient purpose for each activity and workplace in which you broadcast music in public.

If you buy a CD or a DVD from a store, you can listen to the song or watch the video in private, without additional payments. But if you broadcast them in public, for commercial purpose, you should pay broadcast charges.

The licenses are obtained, from the following institutions: CREDIDAM (The Romanian Centre for Performers’ Rights Management), UPPR (Union of Phonogram Producers from Romania) or UCMR – ADA (Romanian Musical Performing and Mechanical Rights Society). The three institutions act in the same area, but represent separate groups of artists and collect charges in their names: CREDIDAM represent rights from the performers of music, UCMR-ADA represent copyrights of composers and UPFR music publishers.

There are two types of licenses: license of reproduction payable at UPFR, if it plays an own musical playlist and license of communication of musical works, payable to all three institutions above.

The UPFR license shall not be transferable and you can choose for a period of validity up to a year, renewable.

The amount of the remuneration shall be calculated from the category of economic agent belongs, the useful surface of each workplace and location in an urban area, tourist area or rural area, as appropriate.

By way of example, if you want to broadcast music into a mall, you need to pay a charge for ambiental music about 1800 lei/luna, but if you want to play music into a restaurant or bar over 500 m.p. from a touristic city you pay 350 lei/luna.

These payment obligations shall be established based on law nr. 8/1996 on copyright and related rights.

If you would like to address more questions or if you need a legal consultation, you can contact us at office@rrpb.ro or by accessing our site www.rrpb.ro for more information.