Rn sept music

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76|Retail News|September 2013|www.retailnews.ie

Music Use In-Store

Brendan Griffin, Director of Licensing, IMRO

Striking the Right Note with Customers If you play music in your store via radio, TV etc, you need an IMRO licence, according to Brendan Griffin, Director of Licensing, IMRO. IF you are playing music in your store, you need a licence from IMRO (Irish Music Rights Organisation) to do so. Just like any other input into your business, musical compositions have to be paid for. When you use copyright music in your business, you must first obtain permission from the copyright owners to do so. You do this by obtaining and paying for an IMRO licence. “It is a legal requirement,” explains Brendan Griffin, Director of Licensing, IMRO. “If you perform copyrighted music in public, and that copyrighted music is within IMRO’s repertoire, you need a licence from the copyright owner to perform that music.” IMRO is a national organisation that administers the performing right in copyright music in Ireland on behalf of its members - songwriters, composers and music publishers - and on be-

half of the songwriters, composers and music publishers of the international overseas societies that are affiliated to it. IMRO’s function is to collect and distribute royalties arising from the public performance of copyright music. IMRO exists to help businesses and community groups to legally access the worldwide repertoire of music in a cost effective and efficient manner, while making sure that songwriters, composers and publishers are rightly rewarded for the public use of their music. Music Adds Value “If you want to use music in your business, you are using it for a reason: it is there to add value to your business,” Brendan notes. “It hopefully will help you to obtain customers and to retain them. It is just like any other aspect of your store, from the façade at the front,

the ambience inside or the product offering on the shelf: it is all geared towards bringing customers through the doors and retaining them. Music can help you to do that and an IMRO licence ensures that you get access to the best repertoire in the world, with every major songwriter and every major song, 365 days a year.” So how much does it cost? The licence fee for retail premises varies, depending on the size of the store. Brendan explains, “For a store that is 100 square metres, the fee is €143 for the second year of the licence onwards – the first year’s fee is slightly higher – which is less than 50c per day. As the store size increases, so does the fee. For a store that is 500 square metres, the cost is €358 per annum, and a 1000 square metre store would expect to


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