Why regular music on your phone line is not automatically allowed
Playing music to your callers counts as business use of music. Two kinds of rights apply: the composer's copyright (collected in the Netherlands by Buma/Stemra) and the neighbouring rights of the performing artist and producer (collected by Sena). For regular music you take out a licence; Buma/Stemra and Sena arrange this jointly via mijnlicentie.nl. For music on hold, Sena applies a tariff based on the number of phone lines.
What are Buma and Sena?
Buma/Stemra is the Dutch organisation that collects payment for composers and lyricists when their music is used: Buma for playing it, Stemra for recording it. In practice they operate as one organisation. Sena does the same for performing artists and record producers, the so-called neighbouring rights. Play regular music in a business setting and you deal with both: a single track carries both kinds of rights at once.
What about streaming services?
A consumer streaming subscription is for personal use. The terms of those services do not permit business use, such as playing music to customers or callers. That is separate from the licensing question: they are two distinct problems and you would need to solve both.
"Royalty-free" does not automatically mean free of collecting societies
Many vendors sell "royalty-free" music. Be aware that this term usually only covers the purchase licence. If the composer is affiliated with a collecting society (at home or abroad), Buma/Stemra can still collect, whatever the vendor promises. Since 2024, Sena also no longer accepts indemnities from music suppliers: the burden of proof lies with you as the user. So always ask a vendor who composed the music and whether they are affiliated anywhere.
There is also debate
For completeness: a 2012 ruling by the European Court of Justice, about radio music in a dentist's waiting room, is sometimes read to mean that music for a small audience without profit motive requires no fee. Whether that extends to hold music is not clear-cut; in practice the collecting societies simply apply their tariffs. If you would rather avoid a debate with a collection agency, choose music where the question does not even arise.
How Meldstem solves this
We make our hold music ourselves, on our own computer, using freely available software. There is therefore no composer, performer or producer affiliated with a collecting society who could make a claim. Every download includes a statement describing how the music was made. To the best of our knowledge no collecting society fee applies. Nobody can give you an absolute indemnity, so neither do we, but you will be holding a substantiation. If you upload your own music, we make no statement about it: those rights remain yours.