Almost every restaurateur pays SACEM. Almost none knows what they are paying for, or that a second royalty exists — or, above all, that the music subscription they play every evening does not entitle them to do so.
Two rights on the same track
When a record plays in your dining room, two families of people are concerned:
- The author and the composer — the people who wrote the words and the music. This is copyright (droit d'auteur), managed by SACEM.
- The performer and the producer — the person who sang it, and the person who paid for the recording. These are neighbouring rights (droits voisins), and article L214-1 of the intellectual property code gives them a right to equitable remuneration when a commercially published phonogram is played in a public place. It is split half and half between the two.
Two distinct rights, on the same song. Playing a record uses both.
Who is concerned, and from when
Any place open to the public where recorded or broadcast music is played. Which covers more than people expect:
- background music during service;
- the radio on in the dining room or the kitchen if customers can hear it;
- the television in the dining room;
- music in the toilets, and your telephone hold music;
- a DJ, a concert, karaoke, a party.
There is no volume threshold and no duration threshold. This is not the amplified-sound decree, which only targets high levels and habitual use: this is copyright, and it applies from the first track, at any volume.
→ Noise impact study: who is actually concerned — the two are often confused; they are unrelated pieces of regulation.
The Spotify trap, and its mirror image
This is the point that surprises people most, and it concerns just about everyone.
A personal Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music or YouTube Music subscription is for private use only. Its terms forbid playing it in a place open to the public. Upgrading to Premium changes nothing: Premium removes the adverts, it grants no public-performance licence.
Professional music services exist, built for exactly this. But beware the reverse reasoning.
Declaring, and why it comes first
The declaration is made before you first play music, on SACEM's portal. A discount exists for declaring up front rather than after the fact — its rate and conditions should be checked on the portal, as they change.
The principle does not change: declaring in advance costs less than being caught up with, and the procedure takes a few minutes.
The rate depends on several things: the type of establishment, its floor area or capacity, the region, and above all how your activity is classified.
Events are declared separately
A concert, a DJ night or a karaoke evening are not covered by the background-music royalty. They require a separate declaration, before the event.
And an artist coming to play their own compositions exempts you from nothing: that performance is declared too. It is that declaration which then allows them to be paid what they are owed — in other words, making it is paying them.
What to check yourself
- Current rates and discounts, on SACEM's portal. They change every year, and no article should serve you as a price list — this one no more than any other.
- The classification of your establishment: musical atmosphere or not. It weighs on the invoice more than anything else.
- What you use today to play music, and what its terms actually allow.
- Your television, if you have one in the dining room, and your telephone hold music. Both get forgotten.
The full running order of the steps to opening: Opening a restaurant in France: what nobody tells you in time.