Should you choose royalty-free music services for your public venue?
Background music is vital to creating a delightful awesome ambiance and customer experience at public places, for instance, bars, pubs, restaurants, hotels, malls, beauty salons, and sports centers. With tailored music, it is possible to improve table turnover rate, design a distinctive brand identity, and influence buying decisions.
However, playing music at venues via well-known applications, like Spotify and YouTube Music is illegitimate and can lead to fines or lawsuits, as they are designed for private use only. Over the past years, royalty-free music services have gained popularity as a cost-effective alternative for establishments to provide a great soundtrack.
In this article, you will get the answers to the common questions about this type of music and find out whether this option fits your needs or not. Let’s get started.
FAQ about royalty-free music services
1. What is royalty-free music?
Royalty-free music is a type of music businesses and individuals can use without paying fees to artists or rights holders every time it’s played. Typically, public places make a one-time licensing payment to stream music as often as they want.
This model provides an inexpensive music solution for establishments that aim to design an awesome atmosphere.
2. Can I download royalty-free music songs?
Yes, certainly! Most royalty-free music platforms allow for downloading tracks and compositions for offline use. Basically, when a business obtains an appropriate license, it can download tunes and stream them at a public venue.
Therefore, you can compile and store playlists on hardware devices, having a backup in case of Internet disruptions.
3. Could you provide the examples of royalty-free music services?
To name a few trustworthy royalty-free music providers, Jamendo Music, Soundstripe, or Epidemic Sound are platforms you can consider for business use.
4. What is the difference between copyright and royalty-free music?
Royalty-free music and copyrighted music are two different types of licensing. Choosing a royalty-free service, businesses have to make a one-time payment without having any additional fees for every time the music is played at a venue. This way, royalty-free music is not free but it is more affordable and convenient than paying royalties.
Copyrighted music is owned by someone who has the exclusive right to control how it is used, distributed, reproduced, or performed.
So, if you want to use copyrighted music for commercial goals, you need to obtain permission from the music rights holders and pay them royalties. The amount of money can vary depending on the type of music use, duration, location, and audience.
5. What are the key advantages of royalty-free music services?
- Cost savings
By using a royalty-free music service, venues cut expenditures. In fact, businesses pay a one-time fee for a piece of music and then don’t have to worry about ongoing payments.
- Wide music choice
Royalty-free music solutions involve songs and playlists of different styles and genres. This way, establishments have the possibility to find background music that matches the target audience’s preferences and brand positioning.
- Customization & control
Control and customization are one of the primary benefits of royalty-free music services. When employing a royalty-free platform, it is possible to skip tunes, adjust volume, and download compositions for offline playback.
What’s more, royalty-free music vendors bring the sound without ads and interruptions unlike, for example, radio. In addition, establishments and music curators can compile their own playlists.
6. What are the drawbacks of royalty-free music services?
- Unknown music
Royalty-free music platforms tend to offer a few famous tunes that may enable you to reach out to and appeal to more customers. Meanwhile, 65% of survey participants prefer to listen to familiar music in stores or songs they consider as of high quality, as found by Nielsen (2018) and SACEM (2016).
In addition, sometimes it can be quite challenging to find great playlists matching your brand identity and guest needs. For instance, some royalty-free music songs may sound boring or too generic for the majority of your audience.
- Lack of updates
Providers of royalty-free music usually don’t have dedicated client support experts to update playlists regularly or by requests.
- Exclusivity concerns
As royalty-free music is available to anyone who acquires a license, venues have a risk of using the same tracks as their competitors. This could disrupt the uniqueness of your brand’s audio identity.
So, should you use royalty-free music services?
Choosing a background music solution that matches your business-specific requirements such as brand positioning, guest preferences, atmosphere, and staff tastes is important to delivering an awesome customer experience, boosting retention, and driving conversions.
Royalty-free services have either advantages or disadvantages, so to find out whether it perfectly fits your business or not, you should determine what kind of music you actually need. In fact, music has a psychological effect on consumer behavior, influencing dwell time, mood, level of satisfaction, and even purchasing decisions.
For example, people prefer listening to brand-fit music at public places rather than random hits. Slow compositions may work better, especially in classic restaurants while bars can increase sales by streaming rhythmic tracks.
However, few customers enjoy repetitive or boring music (say, very slow and soft in volume, not familiar songs or music described as not quality).
In some cases, getting tailored playlists is challenging, since their creation demands certain expertise and knowledge. Most importantly, royalty-free platforms typically don’t have access to the wide range of music provided by famous music rights holders.
Hence, a royalty-free service is a perfect solution for your venue if you’ve managed to find music that aligns with your needs and have a very limited budget. In other cases, we recommend that you consider other background music streaming services.
If you have any questions about the topic or want to receive music playlists curated by professional DJs at a competitive price, feel free to contact us via support@moodby.com.
