Register background music with GEMA
Whether it’s music in the catering trade, in amusement halls or other public places: Register your background music (used on a permanent basis) here. By selecting GEMA, you choose music which your guests, customers, staff and you will love.
- Determine the price and register quickly and easily
Find out everything about background music in public places
- Manage your contract online
All about how to register background music
There is a lot of hard work behind the creative effort of composers, lyricists and music publishers. For that, they deserve fair pay if their works are used in public, e.g. as background music in public places. For just a small monthly fee, you get a licence from us to use these works. We distribute the collected remuneration minus our admin fees directly to the music creators who make a living from it.
Free music choice with the world repertoire
Just like patent law protects inventors, copyright law protects creators. Said law is applicable regardless of GEMA. Your advantage: Instead of contacting and paying each creator individually for your background music, you just get in touch with us, and thus get access to the world's musical repertoire. After all, we represent the rights of more than 95,000 GEMA members but also more than two million rightsholders abroad.
Creating the desired ambience with background music
We often do not even realise how much music influences our mood and our behaviour, e.g. when shopping or eating out. Music, however, is proven to have positive effects on consumer experience and can motivate people to buy. Important in this context is that the music suits your location and your company. Create the ambience you want with background music licensed from GEMA.
Why GEMA-free music is no real alternative:
You do want your background music to create a pleasant atmosphere. Maybe you also want to evoke positive feelings and trigger specific emotions. It is possible to do all this with music from GEMA. After all, we offer almost the entire world repertoire with about 30 million songs – and thus music that suits you and matches your establishment. With GEMA-free music, you renounce on musical diversity, on well-known hits that have a personal meaning.
Register your music use under the category “permanent use"
Whether it’s music in swimming pools, amusement halls or at the museum: Background music is played in many different public places. In that case, we talk about permanent music use since this kind of music is played regularly and repeatedly at a place of use. Therefore, you register this music online under “permanent use” with us. Events and background music in videos can be distinguished from the above.
This is how you register your background in the GEMA Online Portal
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Select the option “permanent use” and determine the fee
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Log on to/register for the Online Portal
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Enter data and complete your notification
Keep an overview – by using the GEMA Online Portal
The GEMA Online Portal provides many practical services to you. Accept or adapt offerse, change your contracts or, where applicable, your personal details. You can also track your transactions, manage all invoices and view your collated GEMA correspondence. These are just a few of the functions the GEMA Online Portal provides.
FAQs – frequently asked questions for GEMA on background music
Music should, of course, be aligned with what your shop or pub stands for. If you sell hip clothing based on the latest fashion trends, you should also be modern when it comes to your music choices.
In general, music can contribute to making your customers more chilled. Plus, relaxed customers take more time, they browse and buy more. Lounge music works in a similar way: Here, slow tempi ensure that more drinks are savoured. A sales-promoting effect of slow music has also been evidenced in restaurants. In a gym, however, it is recommended to play faster music; it motivates the clientele to put more effort in.
In general, the rule applies that music should not be too loud. This can create stress and even drive away customers. But there are always exceptions. Young people, for example, like it louder than the older generation.
Additional scientific findings on the effect of background music is documented in our
Music Impact Study.
Please register your background music in time before you start playing it in your establishment. There is usually no fixed period but the earlier, the better. This way, you can clarify any outstanding items, if necessary.
The exception: If you are a member of a federation/umbrella organisation with which a general agreement or blanket agreement exists, it is possible that there are specific provisions regarding the number of days before your background music must be registered. Your association or umbrella organisation would have to inform you of any such mandatory notification deadlines.
Our customer advisers regularly check shops and outlets, medical practices, leisure centres and other public places. If music is played there, and we have not been notified about it in advance, additional payments are due. This means that you also face additional costs. After all, we do not want to encumber our members or our customers who actually pay their fees correctly with the additional financial costs which we incur.
This depends on several factors: Where the music is played, e.g. whether it’s in retail, in a restaurant or such like or in a leisure centre. The size of the room where the music is played is also an important criterion. In principle, the following applies: the more potential listeners there are, the higher the GEMA fee. A quick example as a reference point: In retail, the licence fee for playing background music amounts to about EUR 25 (net) per month for a sales room with up to 200 sqm.
To determine your cost, simply use our price calculator. Just enter the data there regarding your background music and calculate the price. Or check out our tariffs..
Each person who is responsible for the use of music in public – in an organisational and economic function. These include, but are not limited to: Restaurant owners, retailers, event organisers, online suppliers, labels, doctors, clubs etc.
GEMA licence fees are generally due whenever you use music in public. Music is considered to be public if it is accessible to a not entirely small number of people. This is also then case when people have access to the music in succession - for example, when several people enter a shop, one after the other, in the course of a day. Don’t forget: Notify us of the music use before you play it in public.
A place of use is the place where music is used in public. It is not unusual that the address of the place of use and the address of the licensee are not the same. A licensee may have several place of use, for example when they run retail shops in several locations.
Yes, because we do not only manage the rights of German music creators. We also represent the rights of foreign music creators. The base for this are representation agreements with foreign collective copyright management organisations. Just like we manage the song rights by e.g. US-American, British or Swedish composers in Germany, their collective copyright management organisations manage the rights of German creators in their countries.
If this wasn’t the case, you would have to pay licence fees for using music to collective copyright management organisations abroad. Luckily, that's not the case. After all, this would be so much more cumbersome for all parties involved, and thus also more expensive.
Us, of course! Everything you need to know is documented on our page music in videos.
