Guide to Music Licensing
Below you will find a general guide to music licensing, music rights and our licensors. TouchTunes aims to provide general information about our licensing procedures and answers to the most frequently asked questions by the coin-op industry. However, music is a specialized area of entertainment law and we recommend that you direct any specific questions to a knowledgeable attorney or music rights consultant.

TouchTunes Music Corporation believes in the protection of copyright. We support the philosophy that songwriters and artists deserve to be compensated for their labor and art.

Music Rights
Our licenses have the same restrictions and limitations that a CD jukebox JLO License has. That is, both the JLO CD Jukebox License and the TouchTunes performance licenses cover only music performed when the jukebox is coin-operated, accessible and operated by patrons and located in establishments where no cover charge or entry fee is levied. Our licenses do not cover performance when a DJ is engaged to play music, a live band performs, the jukebox is used for karaoke or a cover, entry or similar fee is charged to customers entering the location. Our licenses do not cover any other music sources such as radio, television, CD or MP3 players. In these cases, the societies will seek to license the location for those performances.

Record Companies
Record Rights
The master recordings reproduced for use in our digital jukeboxes are protected by copyrights held by the record companies or the artists themselves (our "Licensors"). We are required to secure licenses for the reproduction rights to the recordings we use. TouchTunes has successfully negotiated master use licenses with all the major record labels as well as many independent labels.

Music Publishers
Publishing Rights
The music publisher is the entity that owns the copyright in a song: the music and lyrics to the song itself not the paper on which it is printed or the recording on which it is performed. Anyone who wishes to record, perform or synchronize a song in, for example, a motion picture film or television program, must secure a license and pay a royalty. TouchTunes has successfully negotiated publishing licenses with all of the major music publishers and hundreds of independents.

Performing Rights
Public Performance Rights & Organizations
In the United States of America nearly all public music performances are licensed through ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. Nearly all "professional" American songwriters belong to one of these societies and virtually all music publishers have companies belonging to all three societies.

The Copyright Act as amended in 1976 grants the copyright owner (songwriter or music publisher as the case may be) the exclusive right to license the performance of a musical composition in public. That means that no one may publicly perform copyrighted music without the express prior permission of the copyright owner or their agents.

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers):
Established in 1914, ASCAP has over 200,000 members and represents 8 million songs. The Society is owned and operated by its members.

BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.):
Founded in 1940, BMI is a non-profit making company which represents more than 300,000 songwriters, composers and publishers and their 6.5 million musical works.

SESAC (SESAC, Inc):
SESAC is a privately held organization and the smallest of the three performing rights societies.

JLO (The Jukebox License Office):
The JLO is a joint venture of ASCAP, BMI and SESAC that handles the licensing of public performance rights on non-digital jukeboxes in commercial establishments in the United States on behalf of music publishers and songwriters.

TouchTunes has entered into performance licenses with ASCAP and BMI and has additional direct licenses with all of the major music publishers and hundreds of smaller independents in the United States of America. These agreements ensure direct payment to the publishers for the reproduction of their musical works on our jukeboxes and for non-ASCAP or BMI publishers for the public performance of their catalogs in commercial establishments. For further information please feel free to write to our Music Department.