The OneMusic licence covers you for the use of our music in your business regardless of the source – whether it’s from radio, CDs, or a digital music service.

You should be aware that a OneMusic licence, even when it includes Music Dubbing only gives you permission to use our music in your business. It does not override the Terms of Use for the personal digital music service, nor does it give you permission to use that particular digital music service for a commercial purpose – that permission can only come from the owners of that digital music service.

Even with our licence, the use of digital music services by you in your business may be in breach of the terms and conditions of your end user agreement with that service. You should check with your service provider.

When you play our music in a business you need our permission to do so. Additional permission also applies when using a digital music service, downloading or copying our music.

Under the Copyright Act (1994), these rights are distinct and have different treatments and restrictions:

• Background Music covers music played in a non-domestic setting 'public performance' Section 16
• Music Dubbing covers copying music; or caching music from the digital music service onto your device; outside of personal use Section 81A

Music Dubbing covers the reproduction and/or temporary storage (caching) of music copied for the purposes of public performance.

• Reproduction means the copying of audio or audio-visual material (whether digitally or via physical formats) for the purposes of performance of our music, with such copies being either in permanent form (e.g. a copy of a CD or a digital download of an MP3 file) or Cached in temporary form. Reproduction also covers the copying that occurs when streaming our music from a domestic digital music service in a commercial or business environment.
• Cached or Caching is, for the purpose of the Music Dubbing agreement, a digital reproduction (i.e. copying) of our music that is made to allow temporary access to a file on a device without interruption in low or no bandwidth circumstance

If you don’t download, copy, or use a digital music service in your business you do not need the additional OneMusic Dubbing Licence.

If you hold a OneMusic Background Music licence you can play music using:

• New Zealand radio stations*
• Original CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray
• Television stations
• Vinyl and tapes

A Background Music Supplier* might also be an option for your business. Find out more here. 

*Conditions apply.

When you hear about music royalties, that’s what we do. Licence fees are distributed to songwriters, composers, publishers, recording artists and record labels, by APRA AMCOS and Recorded Music NZ, who are the companies behind OneMusic. Click here to find out more.

To be fair to the businesses that hold a OneMusic Licence, and to the music creators who own the songs being played, OneMusic checks music use in all different types of business across New Zealand.

We provide those playing music with all the information they need and are happy to answer any questions.

If a business unfortunately refuses a Licence, even after many attempts by OneMusic to help them understand their legal obligations, we go down a legal route and may commence proceedings for copyright infringement under the Copyright Act (1994).