Playing music in a restaurant, salon, or shop is a public performance. Personal Spotify is not a business license. The expensive part is not always the annual PRO invoice. It is mixing sources you did not license, or treating karaoke night like a background stream.
Five costs show up after the speaker is already on. None of them require scare copy.
We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. If you mix SyncPoint with other music sources, talk with your counsel or the relevant PRO about those other sources.
1. PRO invoices that are not a single flat number
In the United States there are five performing rights organizations for musical works: ALLTRACK, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and GMR. Each represents a different catalog. BMI’s FAQ is direct: a license from another PRO is not a BMI license. NMRA tells restaurants the same thing — you usually need more than one if you play mainstream catalogs.
Those invoices scale. Occupancy, square footage, recorded vs live, TVs, DJs, nights per week. We are not reprinting a rate card here. The high-level total-cost frame is already on the site: how much commercial background music costs. The PRO map is in ASCAP, BMI & SESAC explained.
A commercial background service can include public performance rights for its stream. NMRA’s caveat still applies: that service almost never covers live bands, DJs, TVs, karaoke, jukeboxes, or consumer apps, and it may not include every PRO. Check the source, not the vibe.
2. The letter you ignore
Most files do not start in court. They start as mail, email, or a phone call. Entuned’s 2026 letter guide calls it a licensing demand backed by a documented file — usually investigator visits and calls. In most of those writeups, nobody has sued yet.
U.S. copyright law sets statutory damages for infringement. Commercial-music and law-firm explainers (Entuned, Vondran) cite the same range in 17 U.S.C. § 504(c): $750 to $30,000 per work, and up to $150,000 per work if a court finds the infringement willful. Attorney’s fees can be added. NMRA cites the $150,000 ceiling when it tells members not to ignore a letter.
Those are statutory ranges, not a SyncPoint quote card. The venue-sized versions look like the next section. If a letter is already on the desk, start with what to do with an ASCAP or BMI demand letter, then inventory every music source in the room, split karaoke and live from the background stream, and pull invoices. The PRO map is in ASCAP, BMI & SESAC explained. Personal apps: Spotify for business. Do not use this post as a reply script.
3. Karaoke and live are not background music
Ottobar in Baltimore is the current example, and it is easy to misread.
On June 23, 2026 a federal magistrate ordered the club to pay about $12,048.75 in statutory damages (Daily Record: “slightly over $12,000”) plus $6,500 in attorney’s fees to BMI and three publishers (Sony Music Publishing, EMI Blackwood Music, All Clear Music). The Daily Record headlined $18.5K. The Banner wrote “over $18,000.” BMI had asked for more. The court used 2.5× an annual licensing fee.
The songs were karaoke, in Otto Upstairs: “Take On Me,” “(I Just) Died in Your Arms,” and “Goodbye Earl.” Not a house background stream. Owner Tecla Tesnau told The Banner she had licensing agreements with other agencies and mistakenly thought she was completely covered. BMI told the court it had reached out more than 30 times since 2023.
SyncPoint would not have covered those three songs. licensing excludes live performances, DJs spinning other catalogs, and karaoke of third-party songs. A cleared background catalog in the dining room does not license karaoke night. Budget and license them as different jobs, or do not run the night.
4. “I already pay someone” is how the gap opens
Three public cases, three versions of the same sentence:
- Vazzy’s Cucina (Shelton, CT, 2014). Hartford Business: owners settled a BMI suit for $18,000 over nine songs. John Vazzano thought Muzak and cable covered him, or that a private party had played the tunes. After the settlement he bought a BMI license for about $4,500 a year.
- The Pirate’s Den (Green Township, OH, 2016). Cincinnati.com: ASCAP filed a federal suit that seeks up to $90,000. That page does not say the bar paid $90,000. Owner Larry Hemsath said he already had a BMI license. Coverage named Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You.” ASCAP had contacted the venue as many as 40 times over five years. An annual ASCAP license, the story said, would have been $1,925 — about $5 a day.
- Ottobar (Baltimore, 2026). BMI, not ASCAP. Karaoke, not background. “Other agencies” were not the catalog that sued.
BMI’s FAQ again: Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music do not clear public performance. A license from another PRO does not cover BMI. The venue owner is the licensee, not the DJ or the band. Personal streaming is covered on the site in Spotify for business.
5. Source drift — phones, patios, and the second door
The license you bought is for a source and a location. Drift is a cost because it is how a covered dining room grows an uncovered patio, a staff-phone aux, a holiday Bluetooth speaker, or a second storefront on the same login.
One SyncPoint subscription or one Music Pack is one physical location unless you add site licenses. The multi-location version of that sentence is already written: multi-location business music licensing. One consumer account in every store is still a no. Site License 1 is $5.00 per month; Site License 10 is $25.00 per month, on pricing.
Staff phones are the cheap version of the same drift. Dedicated device, bookmark the player, write it in the opening checklist. Hardware does not legalize a personal account; it only makes a licensed source reliable.
What SyncPoint is from here
SyncPoint is a commercial background catalog plus a web player. It is not packs-only, and it is not a blanket legal shield.
- Syncpoint Media Server — $14.95 per month, one site license, genre stream, 24/7, ad-free
- Server Pro — $21.95 per month, plus custom genre and optional scheduled ads
- Community Server — $34.95 per month, plus client library tools (see the live labels on pricing)
- Site add-ons — $5 per extra site, or $25 for ten
- Music Packs — one-time ZIPs for in-house playback at one location; Holiday Music Pack Volume 1 is $39.95
Subscriptions and packs are built so you can play our curated catalog for background use at the licensed location without a separate PRO license for that SyncPoint music. Show the invoice and the licensing page if someone asks what is playing. That is documentation for SyncPoint tracks at that location — not a blanket over someone else’s catalog.
What we will not claim: digital broadcasting for packs (the pack license forbids radio, TV, and film without written permission). Coverage for karaoke or live covers. Coverage for a personal Spotify account you also left connected. A second address on one subscription.
Annual billing shows a 15% save on the pricing page.
Bottom line
Pay for the sources you actually play, at the doors where they are audible. PRO invoices are one cost. An ignored letter is another. Karaoke is a third. “We already license with someone” is how Vazzy’s, Pirate’s Den, and Ottobar each described the hole. Phones and extra locations are how a clean setup decays.
For house background, SyncPoint streaming starts at $14.95 and packs are one-time files. For everything else in the building, read licensing and talk with counsel or the relevant PRO. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice.