Table of Contents

• Why are industrial and internal licenses important?
• What is an internal music license?
• What about organizations?
• What is an Industrial license?

Internal music licensing and industrial music licenses refer to the audience who will be watching the copyrighted music in a media project. Organizations using the media project for their employees are considered as having internal licenses (i.e. internal training videos, company meetings, etc.). Internal uses are infrequent, but they are less expensive. All other types of usage are covered by industrial licenses.

Why are industrial and internal licenses important? 

The target audience for a particular media project is important since it influences the sort of music license and how it is issued. Internal and industrial licenses will decide not only the price of a music license, but also if the usage of the license is legal. You could face legal action if you don't have the right license, which could include copyright infringement.

What is an internal music license?

Internal music licenses, on the whole, involve media projects that will only be shared between a company and its employees. This means that the media project will only be seen by the company's personnel and will not be visible to the general public. An internal music license, for example, can be used to add music alongside training films for new hires or meeting recaps. Internal music licensing have traditionally been less expensive than external licenses.

Internal music licensing include the following:

Corporate Announcements Training Films for New Employees
Business Meetings or Internal Events Recaps

What about organizations?

One frequent misunderstanding about internal licenses is that they apply to all organizations. If a church licenses a song and shows the project to its congregation, this is considered an external license, even though the people viewing the film are members of the “organization.”  

Similarly, if Toastmasters showed their members an educational film using copyrighted music, this would also be considered as an external license. It's worth noting that the people watching the media project must be company or organization employees.

What is an Industrial license?

Long story short, everything else is an industrial license. It's an industrial use if individuals are watching a media project containing copyrighted music that isn't for internal corporate communication.

The following are some examples of industrial music licenses:

• At an event or trade show, commercial films are shown.
• Within a store, point-of-purchase displays
• Films screened at a Film Festival.