SAMRO & SAMPRA

Music Licensing: What Shop Beat Covers, and What You Still Need

Playing music in your store where customers or staff can hear it legally counts as a "public performance," which is why a personal Spotify, Apple Music, or similar account isn't allowed — those are for private use only, and using them in a business breaches the provider's terms.

Shop Beat is different: your subscription includes the mechanical (copy) licence for every track on the player, so the music itself is 100% legally sourced. However, playing that music publicly still requires you, the store owner, to hold your own SAMRO licence (covers the songwriters) and SAMPRA licence (covers the recording artists and labels) — these sit on your account and aren't included in the standard Shop Beat subscription.

If you'd rather not deal with SAMRO and SAMPRA at all, Shop Beat also offers a royalty-inclusive plan using music we own outright — since there's no third-party songwriter or recording rights involved, you don't need separate SAMRO or SAMPRA licences on that plan.