In a short answer Yes, but not your everyday playlists used for your system in your house. There are fully commercialised Spotify and Sonos options for business use, for which separate fees and licensing are applicable.
Full disclosure, we represent Perfect Octave, a company that provides curated music playlists for business that can be accessed with Sonos, Spotify etc and they also take care of all PPL / PRS licensing, so the music can be played lawfully in your coffee shop, barbers, bar, or cafe.
But you shouldn't be leaving it to chance.
Background music in retail is a big deal and music playlists played out in your business should match your brand, culture and audience demographic . The wrong music played at the wrong time of day will drive customers out of your business just as quickly as poor service.
There is a whole lot of science attached to background music playlist creation, which includes day parting (time of day / audience) considerations, after all you wouldn’t want heavy rock playing in a restaurant serving cream tea at lunchtime or slow tempo ballads from the 70’s playing in a fashion store trying to attract the local 14–24 year old audience that are into grunge etc.
If you have a business that plays music and are unsure whether you are doing it legally or not, we'll happily guide you in the right direction.
Read Nick Spalding's answer to Are there any options for legally playing Spotify playlists as background music in a retail establishment? on Quora
Photo by Tim Umphreys
