UK Theatre Music Licensing: Amateur and Professional Shows

UK theatre music licensing depends on how you use the music, which rights it involves, and your production’s status. Amateur and professional shows both need appropriate permissions, while a venue licence doesn’t clear every onstage use.

The biggest distinction is between ordinary playback, music within a dramatic performance, and staging a musical. Rehearsals, recordings and livestreams can introduce further rights.

Start by separating those uses before you commit to songs, choreography or timed entrances.

Key takeaways

• PRS for Music concerns compositions and lyrics; PPL concerns sound recordings and recorded performances.
• Amateur and professional productions have different recorded-music tariffs, but neither category provides blanket permission to stage protected music.
• Background music, incidental cues, character-led songs and complete musicals can follow different licensing routes.
• Allocate responsibility between the producer and venue, then budget separately for live performances and any filming or online release.

What PRS for Music and PPL cover

PRS for Music covers the underlying song

PRS for Music administers performing and communication rights in musical works for songwriters, composers and publishers. These rights remain relevant when actors sing or musicians perform without using an existing recording.

For example, a live band playing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” performs a protected composition. Creating its own live performance doesn’t remove the rights in the song.

However, PRS licensing doesn’t automatically include every dramatic use. A musical’s production rights may sit with its publisher or an authorised theatrical licensing agent.

PPL covers recorded music

PPL handles rights associated with sound recordings and the performances captured on them. Playing ABBA’s released recording therefore introduces recording rights alongside the composition rights.

PPL’s public-playing licensing guidance directs businesses and organisations towards PPL PRS for relevant public playback. PPL PRS administers TheMusicLicence, bringing together relevant PPL and PRS permissions.

A purchased backing track also remains a recording. Its purchase terms and the production’s performance permissions address different activities.

When music needs dramatic permission

Incidental and interpolated music follow different routes

Incidental music supports the drama without belonging to the characters’ world. Interpolated music exists within that world and is audible to its characters, such as music from a radio that a character switches on.

This distinction affects permission and charging. According to PPL PRS theatre licensing guidance, interpolated music requires advance authorisation, with applications submitted at least 30 days before the first performance.

For authorised PRS-controlled interpolated music, the charge uses a revenue percentage that varies with duration. Incidental music instead has a capacity-based weekly PRS charge.

Grand rights cover dramatico-musical works

Staging all or part of a musical or opera generally requires permission directly from the relevant copyright holder. PPL PRS doesn’t license these grand rights through ordinary public-performance arrangements.

The same issue arises with music written for a particular dramatic presentation when used within that presentation. Building a new musical around existing songs also needs dramatic clearance rather than an assumption that ordinary song licensing applies.

Individual songs from musicals can qualify for collective licensing when performed non-dramatically. However, they mustn’t visually suggest the parent show through costume, characterisation, choreography, props or scenery.

They also mustn’t form a condensed show or complete act. Excerpts from the same show within one programme must total no more than 25 minutes. That limit isn’t general permission to stage a shortened musical.

How amateur and professional productions differ

Recorded-music tariffs distinguish production status

For PPL-controlled recordings used in dramatic presentations, PPL PRS identifies PPLPP030 for amateur theatrical productions and PPLPP032 for professional theatrical productions.

These are recording-side tariffs. They don’t replace permission for the composition, dramatic authorisation or a musical’s production agreement.

An amateur society using commercial recordings therefore has more to consider than obtaining a script. Likewise, a professional producer needs separate attention to recording rights even after securing the rights to perform the play.

Production agreements define the permitted staging

Amateur and professional rights can have different availability and contractual terms. A rights holder may license a title for one category without offering equivalent permission for the other.

The agreement defines the authorised production, including its dates, venue and permitted performances. Its restrictions may also govern alterations, arrangements and supplied materials.

For both types of company, buying scripts or paying performers doesn’t establish permission to stage a protected musical. Secure the production rights before the show becomes a public commitment.

Separate venue music from rehearsal use

The venue’s licence has a defined scope

A theatre may already hold TheMusicLicence for relevant music use. Nevertheless, “the venue is licensed” leaves important questions unanswered about the production itself.

Foyer and bar music differ from incidental cues and interpolated songs. Theatre background music uses section 3.1 of PRS Tariff T and PPLPP031, while onstage activities can follow other routes.

The hire agreement should identify who handles each category, submits music information and pays the charges. For a touring production, record those responsibilities for every venue.

A local-authority premises or entertainment licence is separate from copyright permission. It doesn’t clear the songs or recordings.

Rehearsal materials need their own attention

Buying a piano score or rehearsal recording doesn’t grant public staging rights. Also, copying sheet music, distributing audio files and preparing edited playback tracks can involve rights beyond live performance.

MCPS handles mechanical copying rights in compositions. Copying an existing recording involves the recording side too.

Keep authorised rehearsal materials with their usage terms. Record whether permission includes cast copies, rehearsal backing tracks and edits, rather than treating one purchased file as unrestricted production material.

Build the budget around each music use

There isn’t one universal theatre music fee. A useful budget separates composition charges, recording charges and direct dramatic-rights agreements.

These PRS charging bases distinguish common theatre uses.

Music use	PRS charging basis
Theatre background music	Annual charge under Tariff T, section 3.1
Incidental music	Capacity-based weekly charge under section 3.2
Authorised interpolated music	Revenue percentage varying with duration under section 3.3
Walk-on or walk-off music	0.2% of actual gross receipts, net of VAT

Recording-side charges can sit alongside these PRS charges. Grand-rights fees follow the relevant production agreement, so the table isn’t a complete show quotation.

Budget for score or material hire where applicable, administration and any applicable VAT. Keep proposed filming and promotional clips on separate budget lines because stage permission doesn’t automatically cover them.

Our guide to music synchronisation costs explains the separate composition and master permissions that can affect video budgets.

Most importantly, price the planned run. Additional performances, a tour or a later revival can extend the requested permission.

Use one clearance record throughout production

A shared music schedule gives the producer, musical director and sound operator the same information. It should identify each song, writer, recording artist, version and duration, plus exactly what happens onstage.

Use a repeatable clearance process:

1. Describe each cue accurately, including whether characters hear it, whether performers sing it and whether playback uses a recording.
2. Identify the relevant rights holders and licensing route, separating the composition, recording and any dramatic production rights.
3. Obtain written permissions defining the venue, dates, performances and approved uses before the production relies on the track.
4. Assign responsibility for payments, reporting, credits and document storage, then circulate the approved cue list to the production team.

Keep written approvals, invoices and licence restrictions together. A sound operator needs to know which recording is authorised, because a live version, remix and original release aren’t interchangeable.

A change in staging can change the licensing question: a song played between scenes and the same song heard by a character need different treatment.

Record changes during rehearsals rather than leaving the permissions schedule frozen at the first script draft. This helps prevent an approved background cue becoming an uncleared dramatic feature.

Treat filming and livestreaming as additional uses

A live-stage permission doesn’t automatically authorise a trailer, livestream or recording of the full show. Pairing music with moving images can require synchronisation permission for the composition and permission for an existing master recording.

Also separate the live transmission from an archive, highlights and advertising. Each has a different intended use. Performer agreements and the venue’s recording conditions belong in that planning too.

Our guide to UK livestream music licensing explains why the room and the online audience need separate consideration.

For creator projects, explore our original British songs through our Free Music channel. We offer free downloads and streaming, and ask creators using our music to credit Restorm and restormuk.com.

Keep creator-project terms separate from live-stage permissions. Free listening access alone doesn’t establish dramatic-performance rights.

Frequently asked questions

Does free admission remove the need for permission?

Free admission doesn’t create a general copyright exemption. The relevant questions remain which music you use, whether it is protected and how the production presents it.

A charitable fundraiser or volunteer cast doesn’t, by itself, grant permission to perform protected songs or stage a musical.

Can credit replace a music licence?

Credit fulfils an attribution requirement when permission includes one. It doesn’t independently grant rights to perform, copy, adapt or record somebody else’s music.

Keep the required credit wording alongside the permission covering the actual use.

Does a personal streaming subscription cover theatre playback?

A consumer subscription provides access under that service’s terms. It doesn’t automatically provide theatre performance rights or permission to copy tracks into a playback system.

Use authorised audio sources alongside the permissions covering the production.

Clear the music before the staging depends on it

The strongest approach to theatre music licensing in the UK is use-by-use clearance. Separate the song, recording, dramatic presentation and any online release.

Amateur and professional productions follow different recorded-music tariffs, but both need permissions that match the actual show. Put the cue schedule, venue responsibilities and written approvals in place before rehearsals lock the production to particular music.