Legal Issues with Music On Hold

Your customer has asked for Music on hold. He's wanting to use a CD player or connect the phone system to a radio station. Here's what you (and the customer) need to know.

legality. Even though your customer may go out and purchase a CD or a library of CDs, most music cannot legally be used for MOH without the customer first purchasing a performance/replay license from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (all 3). By the same token said customer cannot legally connect a radio (or Sirius/XM) to the MOH port. He runs into the exact same problem. Even tho the music may have been licensed for public broadcast over a radio or satellite station, that license does not cover rebroadcast by a third party (you). Total license costs (annually) will be approx. $5,700. While expensive, it's much cheaper than the type of nuisance lawsuits that can result for not doing it.

Rather than go this route, the customer should consider subscribing to a commercial background music service provider such as MUZAK (muzak.com) or one of the competing services - something like MUZAK will be far less expensive and with no support or maintenance issues. When shopping for a provider you want to make sure their service is licensed for rebroadcast over your telephone system and that you are furnished with a certificate attesting to this.