Music Licenses For Zumba (R) Fitness Instructors In The UK

It depends.

If you are teaching purely with Zumba Fitness music which has been provided to you as a ZIN either through the material you received in training or in your ZIN continuing education materials the answer is NO.

This music (and indeed many music provided to you for other licensed classes) is bought out - by which all the rights have been paid for so no further music royalties are due to the artists or copyright holders. (But please note this music is provided for you alone and should not be shared with anyone else - even other ZINs.)

However, if you want to use any other music you have you MUST buy the relevant licenses, or you are breaching copyright. So if you want to break out the Shakira or Wyclef Jean then read on...

1. PPL from £85.98

2. PRS from £85.11

I am not going to try and explain exactly what each license covers - music copyright is inherently complicated and a headache! (Trust me trying to license music for a film soundtrack is way, way more complicated!)

The PPL license allows you to play music in public i.e. your class and is based on the type of use and the amount of use.

You can call them directly to buy, and if you teach less than 200 classes a year it's £85.98 for exercise classes. If you're intending to teach full time you may find that you quickly exceed this number, in which case you can call them and upgrade your license (unfortunately it then gets a little bit more expensive!)

There is a chance that your class MAY BE covered by a blanket PPL license if you teach in a gym, however you need to check with each facility that you teach in, and the chances are that the gym will simply be paying for a PPL license that covers music use as background - for example in reception, and won't cover the classes.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether this iicense is necessary any more, so when I renewed I called up to check.

According to PRS it still is, if...

You wish to copy music from one format to another i.e. from a CD or downloaded track onto other devices, such as an MP3 player etc. to use in venues.

ProDub: Fitness - Year One, Level One tier starts at £85.11 (+VAT) to copy up to 1,000 tracks.

If you can get away with buying and playing all your tracks from the original CD then you don't need this, but it's well worth it in my opinion!

As well as Produb PRS also provides venues with licenses for playing music. And, if you are working anywhere it's up to you to check that the venue has its license in place. Which is worth thinking about if you are going to set up a class somewhere that doesn't normally have music playing.

You can also direct the venue owners to these links to check out the low down for themselves!

There is another option available to you. A friend reminded me that you can also buy "PPL Free" or "Rights Free" music from various sources online.

Although it's called "rights free", in some ways it should be called "all rights" because, like ZIN music, when you buy this you are buying the rights to use it for all purposes - including in your classes, so you don't have to pay for additional licenses to use it.

Having said this you really do need to check carefully that the music is actually "rights free" both in the small print (as some uses may be excluded) and that the music belongs to the person or organisation selling it.

Some music libraries offer subscriptions so, once you've bought your subscription you can use as much music as you like.

But, one note of caution, it can take a lot of trawling through these kind of music libraries to find music you actually want to use, and if you want your class to love your playlist it may be an uphill struggle. (I have trawled these libraries for music for film soundtracks in the past and personally I'd rather pay the money and be able to use top music artists!)

The short answer is because you may get fined very substantially if you are found to be without the correct licenses (as can any venue where you're working.)

It's a bit like parking - you may park illegally, you may get away with it, or you may come back to find your car has been towed and in this analogy crushed too, because fines are much bigger than parking fines!

The other answer is that musicians, producers, sound editors... anyone who gets paid through royalties really need the cash - as do the receptionists, cleaners and everyone who work for those big companies. So be honest and share honestly with others for the work they've put into your class for you - after all, we are standing on the shoulders of giants!