By Sonosfera Team
The envelope usually arrives on a Tuesday, addressed to the business rather than to you, and the tone is somewhere between an invoice and a warning. Most people's first reaction is one of two wrong ones: pay it immediately to make it go away, or put it in a drawer.
Neither is necessary. A first contact from PPL PRS is the opening of a commercial process — a request to license the public playing of music in your venue. It is not a fine, not a court judgment, and not a criminal charge. PPL's own Code of Conduct says legal action is a last resort and that businesses will "always" be given "a reasonable opportunity to obtain a licence" first.
What you do need to do is answer it, in writing, based on what you actually play. This page is the walkthrough.
First: work out which of five things you received
They escalate, and the right response is different for each.
| What arrived | What it actually is |
|---|---|
| A first letter or email | An opening request, usually asking you to confirm whether you play music. The start of a conversation. |
| An invoice | A demand that assumes the licence already applies. An invoice is a claim, not proof that the amount is right. |
| A back-payment demand | A claim that you owed a licence for periods already past. You are entitled to ask, in writing, exactly how the period and the amount were worked out. |
| Repeated phone calls | A collection tactic. Nothing has to be settled by phone. |
| A visit or inspection | Usually someone observing what is playing. An agent is not the police; you can ask for ID and ask for any request in writing. |
If you are not sure which you have, the letter decoder will tell you — you pick the sender and the type of contact and it explains that specific combination for your market. It covers 12 countries, so it also works if the letter came from GEMA, SACEM, SIAE, SGAE, OneMusic or a US PRO rather than PPL PRS.
The decision tree
Everything turns on one question, and it is a question about your speakers, not about your paperwork.
Branch 1 — you play mainstream commercial music
Radio. TV. Chart tracks. A guest DJ. Live acts. A consumer Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube account. A playlist someone made at home. A jukebox.
Then the licence very probably does apply. TheMusicLicence is what makes that music legal in a space customers or staff can hear, and it is a normal operating cost — for a pub of 400 m² or less playing through a stand-alone radio, £359.95 a year ex-VAT across both societies. Whether taking it out is cheaper than the alternatives depends on your venue, your timetable and what you would otherwise play, so price it rather than assume it.
What you should still do before paying: check the invoice is built on the right facts. The two societies band on different measurements — PPL on the total audible area of your premises, PRS on your bar area and on the equipment you play through — and getting either wrong moves you onto the wrong row. Check the venue size, the type of use, the number of locations, and the dates. Our UK pub guide gives the band count, the endpoints and the tariff's own pro-rata rule, so you can work out your own band and check the arithmetic yourself; if you run classes, the fitness guide matters more, because classes are charged per class rather than by floor area.
Branch 2 — you play nothing licensable
Silence, or only music that genuinely sits outside both societies' repertoire.
Be careful with "we only have talk radio on". Speech stations still carry music beds, jingles, trailers and advert soundtracks, and that is licensable repertoire like any other. Check what actually comes out of the speaker across a full day before you put this branch in writing.
Then say so, in writing, and be specific. Wording that works:
We have received your letter dated [date], reference [ref]. We do not play music from PPL or PRS for Music repertoire at these premises. Since [date] the only audio played is [describe the source precisely]. Please confirm which specific recordings or repertoire you believe are being used at this address, and on what basis.
Two rules for this branch. Put it on paper or email, not on a call. And do not overstate it — if there is a radio in the staff kitchen, or the barista plugs in a phone on a Sunday, that is licensable music and Branch 2 is not your branch.
Branch 3 — you want to change what you play
You can move the venue onto music that does not use either society's repertoire. The licence stops applying to that music, from that point on — it does not stop applying to anything else you keep playing, and it does not reach backwards.
This is the branch Sonosfera sits in. You don't need a PPL PRS licence to play Sonosfera. Our catalogue is fully rights-controlled and sits outside PPL and PRS repertoire, so you can switch your venue onto it and play freely. Every track you play through Sonosfera is included. If you also play other sources — radio, TV, chart tracks, a DJ, live acts, a third-party playlist — those need their own licence. A paid account generates a certificate recording the account, the premises, the period and a verification serial, and rights documentation is available on request.
Three limits, stated plainly because they are the limits that matter when someone is holding a demand letter:
- It is not retrospective. Switching changes things from the day you switch onward. It does not settle a licence you genuinely owed for music you have already played, and nothing on this page can make a real past debt disappear.
- It covers the Sonosfera catalogue and nothing else. Radio, TV, DJs, live performers, uploaded files, third-party playlists and a guest instructor's phone are separate music sources, and they normally still need TheMusicLicence.
- The certificate proves the music source. It records what your account played and where, which is exactly the fact a letter is asking about. Send it with your reply.
If you are in this branch, the sequence that makes sense is: switch first, keep the certificate, then answer the letter describing the new source and the date it changed. Review country-aware pricing if that is the route.
If you would rather not renew, read Is there a legal alternative to PPL PRS? 6 UK options compared (2026).
A worked example, redacted
Below is the actual output of our letter decoder for a real combination — a UK venue, sender TheMusicLicence (PPL PRS Ltd), contact type back-payment demand. Business identifiers removed; the tool's wording is reproduced as it renders, abridged for length.
A back-payment demand from TheMusicLicence (PPL PRS Ltd)
Whatever the tone of the contact, you are allowed to slow it down, ask for everything in writing, and choose the route that fits what you actually play.
What it is
TheMusicLicence (PPL PRS Ltd) is the single combined licence most venues are asked to buy, bundling songwriting and recording royalties into one payment. A letter or contact like this is a request to license the public playing of that music in your venue. It is the opening of a commercial process — it is not, by itself, a court judgment or a criminal charge.
A back-payment demand claims you owed a licence for periods that have already passed. You are not obliged to accept a figure you cannot verify: you can ask them, in writing, to show exactly how the period and the amount were worked out. Taking out a licence going forward does not require you to admit a specific past debt.
Your options
Pay the licence — If your venue plays mainstream commercial music — radio, TV, chart tracks, live acts, or most consumer playlists — a licence from TheMusicLicence usually does apply… Check the licence is based on the correct venue size, use, locations, and dates before you pay.
Dispute it, if no licensable music is played — If your venue plays no music at all, or only music that sits outside TheMusicLicence (PPL PRS Ltd)'s repertoire, you can reply in writing and say exactly that. Ask them to confirm which specific songs or repertoire they believe you are using, and keep your response factual and on paper.
Change what you play — You can move your venue onto music that does not use the society's repertoire, so the licence stops applying to what you play from that point on… Switching only changes things from the day you switch onward.
What not to do
- Don't just ignore it. In most countries silence leads to firmer letters and, eventually, legal action.
- Don't admit past or unverified usage — in writing or on the phone.
- Don't assume a personal Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube account covers a business.
- Don't pay a back-payment figure you cannot verify. Ask, in writing, for the exact periods and how the amount was calculated.
Run it against your own letter — the sender and the contact type change the answer, and the German branch in particular differs because the GEMA presumption shifts who has to prove what.
The four records to keep
Almost every dispute comes down to a question of fact — what was playing, and since when. That is answerable if you kept records and unanswerable if you did not. Start the file today, whatever branch you are in.
- What you play, precisely. Not "background music" — the actual source. "Sonosfera on the tablet behind the bar, since 14 March 2026." If the source changed, record the change date; that date is the one that decides which period is which.
- Since when. The switch date is the single most valuable item in the file. Bank statements or the first invoice from a music provider evidence it independently of anything you write down.
- Everything they sent you. Keep the envelopes and the emails, with dates and reference numbers. If someone visited, write down when, who, and what they said, on the day.
- Everything you sent back. Reply by email, or by post with proof of sending. A phone call you cannot evidence is worth nothing later.
If you use a music service, keep its invoices and any certificate it issues alongside the rest. The point of a certificate is not that it overrides a licence — it does not — but that it converts "we don't play that repertoire" from an assertion into a dated document.
Things that make it worse
Drawn from the published judgments and from what the escalation process actually does:
- Ignoring it. PPL PRS's published process runs from letters to phone calls to an enforcement team or a debt collection agency, and in some cases to termination of the licence "which may then lead to legal action for copyright infringement."
- Agreeing on the phone. Figures agreed verbally are hard to unpick and easy to characterise as an admission.
- Assuming the company shields you. In the published cases a premises supervisor who booked the acts and a sole director have both been held liable in their own right.
- Playing on while you argue. Both PPL tariffs carry a stated 50% surcharge where music was performed before a licence was obtained.
- Fighting on principle. The costs, not the damages, are what hurt: in the one published judgment with a full breakdown the additional damages were £2,000 and the interim costs payment was £44,587.01. Our page on music licence fines in the UK sets out what the judgments actually record — including the fact that there is no "£5,000 fine".
When to stop reading blogs and get advice
Get a qualified adviser if the demand is large, if it covers several years, if it names you personally, if court papers have been issued, or if you are being asked to sign anything that characterises the past. This page is general information about a published process, not legal advice, and Sonosfera is not affiliated with PPL, PRS for Music or PPL PRS Ltd.
Sources
All accessed 2026-08-01.
- PPL Code of Conduct for Licensees, April 2025 — Phonographic Performance Limited.
- PPL PRS help pages — PPL PRS Ltd, for the escalation sequence.
- PPLPP210 background music tariff and PRS Tariff 'P' (2025.10), for the £359.95 figure and the 50% surcharge.
- Phonographic Performance Ltd v Hagan [2016] EWHC 3076 (IPEC) and PPL v CGK Trading [2016] EWHC 2642 (Ch) — Find Case Law, The National Archives.
Next step
Put the letter through the decoder first — a minute, and it tells you what that specific contact is and what your routes are. Then start the records file. If Branch 3 is where you are heading, review country-aware pricing and compare the alternatives at /compare/uk.
