How do Radio Stations play songs? Do they have the license for every song?

Question

Are some songs cheaper?? Do you just buy a huge license and some company distributes all that money?

In: 1481

Answer 1

Fun Fact:

Radio general licenses are significantly cheaper than streaming licenses. But radio can also be streamed, the legal difference to streaming is that you cannot choose the song you want but only a radio station.

That is why when using free Spotify you can only shuffle play from your playlists and the playlists have to have a minimum number of songs on them. From a legal perspective, you create your own little streaming radio station.

This is at least how it works where I live, I’m not sure it works the same way everywhere in the world.