• authors’ rights (for authors, composers and publishers), managed by Sabam.
• neighbouring rights (for artists and producers), also called ‘Fair Remuneration’, managed by PlayRight and SIMIM.

If you only play music from a completely royalty-free catalogue, you do not pay any authors’ rights royalties. The authors of that music have waived their rights.

Please note: we discovered that protected works were sometimes included in so-called ‘royalty-free’ catalogues in the past. Unisono can always check this. If we find that protected works are indeed being played, you will have to pay authors’ rights royalties.

You must however always pay Fair Remuneration because this is a ‘legal licence’. This means that artists and producers cannot waive these rights; they are always entitled to this compensation.

In that sense, we can say that completely ‘royalty-free’ music does not exist and is a rather misleading marketing term.

If in doubt, you can always contact us. Our staff will be happy to help you.