This question comes up in some variation in almost every conversation about music in hospitality.
“I have Spotify. I pay for it every month. Why wouldn’t that be okay?”
The question is logical. The answer requires a bit more context than might seem necessary.
What you actually pay for when you pay for Spotify
Spotify Premium costs about $12 per month. For that price, you get access to a catalog of over 100 million songs. You can listen offline. No ads. You can skip songs as much as you want.
That’s the value you get.
What you don’t get—and what the terms of use explicitly exclude—is the right to publicly reproduce that music.
Why this distinction exists
Here, things get more interesting than most assume.
Music has creators. Composers, lyricists, arrangers — people who created what you’re listening to. These people have legal rights to their work. One of those rights is the right to compensation when their work is publicly performed.
When Spotify delivers music to you for private listening, it pays creators a certain fee per stream. That fee covers your private use.
When you play that same music in a restaurant, something different happens. You’re no longer listening privately. You’re now publicly performing that work. That’s a different right. And it requires a different fee.
Performing rights organizations (PROs) exist precisely to collect this public performance fee and distribute it to creators. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC in the US. PRS in the UK. GEMA in Germany. ZAMP in Croatia.
A Spotify subscription and a PRO license aren’t substitutes for each other. They cover two different rights. Both are needed.
Why so many hospitality operators believe Spotify is enough
There are several reasons, and none of them is stupid or irresponsible.
First is intuition. If you pay for something, it seems logical that you’ve covered your obligations. A subscription sounds like a license. The difference between private and public use isn’t obvious until someone explains it.
Second is environment. “Everyone does it” isn’t an argument, but it is an observation. If every cafe on the street plays Spotify and nobody has been fined, it’s natural to conclude that it’s not a problem.
Third is priority. A hospitality operator has a hundred things on their mind every day. Music is background — literally. Paying attention to it beyond when someone complains it’s too loud seems unnecessary.
Fourth is a sense of injustice. “I pay a subscription. I pay licensing. And now I need something else?” That feeling is understandable. But the structure of music rights isn’t designed to be simple for the end user. It’s designed to ensure that everyone who has a right to compensation receives that compensation.
What actually happens during an inspection
Inspections aren’t dramatic scenes. The inspector enters as a guest. Notices that music is playing. Identifies themselves. Asks for documentation.
What the inspector cares about
- Do you have a PRO license?
- Does that license cover the actual state of your venue?
- What is the music source?
If the source is Spotify from a personal account, the inspector treats that as unauthorized use. It doesn’t matter that you have a PRO license — the music source must be intended for commercial use.
This isn’t theory. It happens. Not to everyone, not every day — but enough to be reality, not abstraction.
The difference between two layers of obligations
This is the part that gets mixed up most often.
Layer 1: Music source
The music you play must come from a source that has the right to distribute that music for commercial use. Spotify Premium doesn’t. Spotify for Business (where it exists) does. Professional music services for hospitality do. Radio does (for the content it broadcasts).
Layer 2: Public performance rights
Even if you have a proper source, you still need a PRO license. The PRO doesn’t provide music — the PRO licenses the right to play that music publicly.
One without the other doesn’t work. You can have a perfectly legal music source, but without a PRO license you’re in violation. You can have a PRO agreement, but if the source isn’t intended for commercial use, you’re also in violation.
Two layers. Both necessary.
What is actually a “legal source”
| Source | Commercial License | PRO Included | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spotify Personal | No | No | Home use only |
| Radio | Yes | No | Simple setups |
| B2B Music Service | Yes | Partial | Professional venues |
| Royalty-Free Library | Yes | Yes | Budget-conscious |
Comparison of music sources for hospitality venues
Radio — Radio stations have licenses for broadcasting. If you play radio in your venue, the source is legal. But you still need a PRO license for public performance of that radio program.
Professional B2B music services — Services designed for business spaces have licenses to distribute music for commercial purposes. They solve “layer 1”—you still need a PRO for “layer 2.”
Royalty-free libraries — Music that isn’t under PRO protection. Here you need to be careful: you must be able to prove that every song you play truly isn’t in the PRO repertoire. One protected song in your playlist means you need a PRO license for the entire program.
Spotify for Business (or equivalent) — Where it exists, this is the commercial version of streaming. Availability varies by country and partners.
Why “everyone does it” isn’t an argument
This thinking pattern has a name: normalization of deviance. When enough people do something that technically isn’t correct, it starts to seem normal. And it works — until the system notices.
PROs aren’t everywhere simultaneously. Inspections are random. Some hospitality operators go their entire career without an inspection. Others get one in their first month of operation.
“I’ve never heard of anyone getting fined” isn’t the same as “fines don’t exist.” It’s just selection of information that reaches you.
What it actually means to resolve this issue
A hospitality operator who has arranged their music situation has several things:
- A music source intended for commercial use — any of the above options
- A PRO agreement that matches the actual state of the space — correct square footage, all zones registered
- Documentation available for review — contract, payment confirmations
With these three elements, an inspection isn’t a stressful situation. The inspector looks at the documentation, confirms everything is in order, leaves.
Those numbers should be compared to a potential fine of several thousand dollars, plus retroactive collection, plus time and energy spent resolving a problem that could have been avoided.
Music as part of operations
There’s also another perspective on this issue — one that goes beyond legal obligations.
A hospitality operator who uses Spotify from a personal account implicitly treats music as unimportant background. Something that must exist but doesn’t deserve attention.
A hospitality operator who invests in a professional solution — however modest — implicitly acknowledges that music has a function. That it affects how guests feel. That it’s part of what makes the space a space.
That shift in perspective often brings more than just legality. It brings awareness of what’s actually playing, when it’s playing, and why.
Perhaps that’s also the reason why the question about Spotify in a restaurant deserves an answer longer than a simple “you can’t.”
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The professional service handles the music source (layer 1). The PRO license covers the right to public performance (layer 2). Both are needed.
Radio is a legal source, but you still need a PRO license for public performance of the radio program in your venue.
For a small café, the combination of PRO fees and a professional music source runs around $300-500 per year. For larger venues, proportionally more.
Instrumental music still has creators. Jazz standards have creators. Unless they’re explicitly royalty-free and you can prove it, they’re treated as protected music.
For some hospitality operators, it will never be important—they’ll go their entire career without an inspection. For others, one inspection can be more expensive than twenty years of regular payments. The question isn’t whether it’s important. The question is what risk you’re willing to accept.