Using music for commercial purposes: GEMA fees for company parties & more
Popular and versatile. Music in offices.
Whether you say thanks to your staff at office parties, there is a company anniversary in the diary or you present a new product to your customers, the one thing that you cannot do without to make the event a lively one is: music!
However, this does not just apply to office parties, music can also take on an important role in your company everyday life; this can be in videos on your website, to entertain your callers with music on hold or just as background music in your premises.
So that the creators of the musical works played are not left empty-handed, there’s us, GEMA. If you use music for commercial purposes and notify us accordingly, you thus also ensure that music creators are fairly remunerated for their work.
From solemn to exuberant: Music gets you into the right mood.
Are you planning a closed event (i.e. a company Christmas Do) and want it to have an entertaining character? Whether you intend to create a cozy atmosphere or a boisterous party: You can set the desired mood using the right music. The licence to get the permission to play what you want is issued by us, GEMA.
The fees depend on your overall costs for the music (artists’ fees, expenditure for stage and technology, etc.) and the number of guests. When it comes to a company event, you often do not have the opportunity to re-allocate the cost for your event to your guests. In order to take such costs into consideration, we divide the net expenditure by the number of guests. For our calculations, we use 100 sqm as the room size for 150 guests each.
Is your event also streamed online additionally or exclusively? If this is the case, you need a separate licence. The basis for the calculation is the net income (also from advertising, sponsoring, donations etc.), the event duration and the music share in each case.
Well-attuned customers by perfectly tuned music.
This is how you register commercial music in the GEMA Online Portal
Determine the price for your office party, background music etc. *.
Log on to/register for the Online Portal.
Enter data and complete your notification.
The most important GEMA tariffs for companies
Events with live music
Events with sound recordings/carriers
Background music with sound recordings/carriers
Background music via the radio
Background music via television
Corporate television
Music on company websites
Image films or commercials
My company event is restricted to a closed group / group of invited persons only. Why do I have to pay GEMA?
FAQs - frequently asked questions by companies to GEMA
If you wish to enable users to retrieve your streams during a longer period, e.g. in the form of music on your homepage, you can also acquire a licence via tariff VR-OD 10.
In the public performance and communication to the public sector, we have a so-called collection mandate from the following collective management organisations:
- Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten (GVL) for the rights of performing artists.
- Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort (VG Wort) for the rights of written word authors / journalists
- Corint-Media (formerly VG-Media) for the entitlements of private radio and TV broadcasters.
A precondition for rebates is that you stick to the requirements set out in the tariff or the agreement.
You can inform us of your membership of such an association via the GEMA Online Portal mitteilen. If the confirmation of the association for your membership reaches us in time, we can take the general agreement rebate into account.