Use music

Branches & more

• Is the music use covered if I already have entered a licence agreement for my gym/dance studio with GEMA?

  Online uses are usually not covered by existing contracts for on-site music use in the studio.  Such uses are licensed via tariff VR-OD 10, provided that they are on demand uses.  
  
  Additional information on how to register your studio can be accessed here. 

• We are a sports association. Do we have to notify GEMA of our club events?

  Yes, you must notify us of your club events. Some may be surprised that clubs and associations must inform us of their music uses, however, the reason for this is simple: We, GEMA, represent the interests of music creators by ensuring that their intellectual property is protected and they are remunerated adequately for the use of their works. After all, composers, lyricists and music publishers must live off something. Did you know? We are also an association. How exactly we function is described for you in our section GEMA at a glance.
  
  Notifications are mandatory for music in public:
  Whoever performs or plays music in public, or reproduces music, must pay a remuneration or fee to GEMA. We then pass it on in the form of royalties to our creators (minus the administrative fees). This applies to associations, clubs and volunteers, as much as to event organisers, people in the catering trade and private individuals. An event becomes public when people can attend who have no personal relationship to the event organiser and who do not have a relationship with one another. Association or club celebrations are usually public because the participants are not personal friends or related i.e. they do not have (to have) a personal relationship with one another. 
  
  Submit your music notification in time:
  If music is to be played at your club event, even just as background music during half-time, please notify us of this use beforehand. It is rather simple to do this via our GEMA Online Portal by clicking on calculate price & register music . What’s important is that we can issue our licence before the event takes place.  
  
  Please also notify us of free events:
  Even if you do not charge an entrance fee or admission for your association event, you need to send us an event notification. Free events do, however, cost less. The actual level of the fee depends on many factors, such as the type of event, the size of the event location or the actual event space.
  
  Select the appropriate tariff:
  Whether you are looking at parades, sport events, club ceremonies or live concerts: We offer a suitable tariff for each of your club events. You can check out further details in our tariff overview.
  
  The State of Bavaria takes over the fees for voluntary associations
  The Free State of Bavaria currently takes over GEMA licence fees for voluntary Bavarian associations for up to four club events per year.  Find out more about the general solution.

• Why is there no page for my industry sector/business community/association?

  We are launching the pages step by step and add new ones bit by bit. It is therefore worth your while to check out our overview - maybe the page you are looking for is there next time.

• How high are the GEMA fees for the retail trade?

  For just a small monthly fee, you can play music which creates a pleasant atmosphere in your retail shop and which is going to be appreciated by your customers and staff alike.
  
  The level of GEMA remuneration (which is strictly speaking not a fee of GEMA) for retail depends mainly on the floor space or room size. We distinguish between up to 100 sq metres, up to 200 sq metres etc.
  
  The type of medium used, i.e. whether you select to play music from original CDs (streaming etc.), via radio or TV also affect the GEMA remuneration. Also applicable: The longer the contractual duration, the less it costs. As such, a monthly remuneration in the case of an annual contract is lower than when you just enter into a monthly contract, however, the former can only be terminated annually.
  
  All our tariffs are included in our tariff overview for retail, surgeries, hair salons etc. Apart from the remuneration levels for background music, they also include tariffs for music on hold, online uses (to a small extent) and reproduction (e.g. copying of original CDs).   
  
  Good to know: Said remuneration for background music include all supplementary charges by GVL, the Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten mbH, VG Wort, the Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort and Corint Media GmbH. We are taking care of the collection on behalf of the above mentioned organisations.
  
  If you want to calculate the price applicable to your use and to register the music, please use our price calculator. 

• How do we register a spa concert with GEMA and what do we have to take into account?

  If you are in charge of a health spa or a sanatorium, you register your spa concerts via the price calculator in our GEMA Online Portal. It’s very easy and is done as follows:

  1. Determine the price i.e. the GEMA fee for your spa concert
  2. Log in to or register for the first time at our Online Portal
  3. Enter data and complete your notification

  Tip for frequent applicants

  If you notify us of many concerts per month, you can use the monthly notification via our Excel upload. To do this, first log in to our Online Portal and then retrieve the price calculator. In the course of entering your details, you can download an Excel file, complete it and upload it again. This way, you can notify us of several concerts at once. Please do not enter more than 80 concerts per Excel upload.

  Registering concerts that are free of charge

  Spa concerts make their audience happy and add to the attractiveness of your spa. Due to copyright-related reasons, you also need to register concerts that are free of charge and have them licensed through us. With respect to concerts with no admission fee which are directed at the general public, the classification is subject to tariff U-K.

  Since the concerts carry no admission fee, the overall cost for music (e.g. the fees for the artists, light or sound engineers) and the attendance form the basis for the calculation.

  On the distinction between U and E concerts

  Whether a work is categorised as E (serious) or U (entertainment) music, depends on the style of the composition. The entertainment music area includes, for example, dance, pop, jazz and rock music but also works for big band and orchestra line-ups which feature a style that is typical for entertainment music.

  Always submit a setlist

  We always need a setlist for live music and therefore for concerts. Please submit it no later than 6 months after the concert. This is the only way that we can pay out the collected fees to the participating creators.

  Tips on how to submit a setlist

  You can submit your setlists via the GEMA Online Portal with the service My setlists. It is handy to create templates so that you can reuse them each time. You can also delegate the submission of setlists – for example, to musicians and artists.

  These are the details the setlist must include

  In the setlist, we need

  • The title/s of the musical work/s,
  • creator, artist and, where applicable, arranger.

  For concerts with serious music, we also need

  • the number of performing artists (musicians, singers),
  • the duration of the title, it is an important clue to determine the right work version.

  Should you have it, please also indicate the membership numbers of the creators and their work numbers, as well as the names of the publishers.

  Find out more

  You can get more general information on concerts on our concert page. There, you can also find out how we distribute for spoken word cabarets and comedy.

• Where do I find specific information on industry sectors, business communities and associations?

  Under industry sectors & more (only in German), we have compiled infos for the groups mentioned earlier.  If you run a catering trade, hotel, fitness studio, or have a cultural business, carnival association or theatre, you can find all relevant details on GEMA there: How you register the music use, what tariffs apply in your case, answers to frequently asked questions and much more.