What Is a Blanket License?

A blanket license grants an outside entity access to a rightsholder’s entire catalog. They can be issued by a Performing Rights Organization (PRO) or a mechanical rights society. Publishing administrators and organizations like The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) also issue them to Digital Service Providers (DSPs) and other pay sources.

Instead of negotiating a separate contract for every single song played, the user (typically a TV network, nightclub, or radio station) often pay an annual fee to access millions of tracks at once. These licenses are the operational backbone of the modern music industry, keeping businesses legally compliant while ensuring songwriters and publishers get paid.

Music publishers also strike blanket license deals that open their entire catalog, or a limited set of songs, up to a specific outlet (e.g., a film production company) for a set rate.

For more on how blanket licenses impact radio stations in particular, check out our blog post on What You Didn’t Know About Radio Royalties.

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What Is a Blanket License?

A blanket license allows an organization to legally stream or perform any song from a rightsholder’s entire catalog for a set period in exchange for a single, recurring fee.