I love the Cafe del Mar CD's the music is awesome and perfect for coffee houses i burned some for a friend who has a place thats actually mainly wine tasting and open for breakfast then at night, they could so many comments about the music. If you'd like more traffic to your site check out the google magic formula i used it for mine and am getting more hits every day now

Neither Sirius or XM carry a Celtic Genre of music. We want Scottish, Irish, and Ren. Fair music, both traditional and new world. We own a ton of it and have permission from one of the record labels but they said it wouldn't cover the legalities regarding paying the artist or the song writers. We are going to get written permission from one Ren Fair group who only performs original and copy-write free stuff (I guess that's the term). We also have a friend who is a well known musician who is going to give us written permission and all of his stuff is original. But 6 days a week for 52 weeks... such a short play list will get old Fast!

Siruis Satellite has worked well for us for the past couple years. I installed 12 ceiling speakers, bought an amp and plugged in the satellite receiver. Had to buy a 50' extension wire for the antenna. We generally play the "Coffee House" station. Although, as the owner, I work the floor on Tuesday so I've created "Tuesdays with Elvis". That's right, all Elvis, all day.

www.beanscoffeeshop.com

I was also getting very tired of playing the same old cd's over and over and my daughter turned me on to Pandora.com
You pick a song or an artist and they create the play list. It's worked out very well. It's free and because of the way it's set up the artists still get their royalties and we get playlists with lots of variety. check it out.

Bob McNair
Doghouse Espresso
Delta, Colorado

get an ipod docking station built-in...almost all the employees i hire have and ipod (and most customers) and have created a 'cafe' playlist with all types of low-key, indie, coffee-esque music...not very expensive and a great way to get everyone involved in what they are hearing. Music is very important, walking into a 'too-quiet' cafe is the worst!

Been researching the music licensing for our shop. Here is a link to the pdf file I found at restaurant.org.

http://www.restaurant.org/pdfs/legal/musiclicensing.pdf

--Albert
Wake Forest Coffee Company
Wake Forest, NC

Legally, you'll need a performance license from BMI and ASCAP, and possibly SEASAC, though they are quite small. Those companies actually pay people, usually members themselves, to "audit" music performances locally, and report back any performances of songs in their catalog. They are usually paid a % of whatever the company (BMI or ASCAP) is able to "shake down" from the establishment in terms of licensing fees. Make no mistake, they are relentless and greedy for their money. The licenses will run you $300 - $500 each, every year. I recently dropped mine, and went with entirely original music. It's worked out great. So instead of featuring that same tired old coffeehouse cover crap like James Taylor, we can offer new and different music from performers that are happy to have their stuff heard.

Ray

Sorry hit the wrong key ..

Ray
I will be opening a coffee house soon here in NH and I did want to have jazz music. Whats the deal with the law about not playing cd's without permisssion? Does anyone know how much it cost to be able to do that and who checks to see that your a member. I am not out to get anyone mad at me I just want to play some good music.

There are certain laws and codes about using radio in a commercial establishment... number of speakers, size of establishment etc. Does anyone know if these are the same for internet radio like AccuRadio? Regular radio doesn't carry our genre of music and most of the artist we listen to aren't even registered with BMI or other such groups/companies so there is no need to pay them because they are only required if you play music by their members.

Worked out great. As said above, all BMI/ASCAP fees are paid. Save some cash and do the installation yourself. When you call XM, they make it sound like commercial sites have to be professionally installed, but they do not. Get the equipment from the electronics dealer of your choice, installs in an hour, then call XM and get on the commercial deal.

Be careful of copyright, Ascap/BMI. The best deal is sat. radio sirius or XM. no commercials or talk to deal with. XM has plenty of talk free formats.

the commercial deal is $25 to $30./month, but all clearances are paid. Initial hardware a couple of hundred.

BillO
Swimming Mermaid Coffee House
PointSouth SC

We just had local jazz stations on the radio we switched between as needed (some would go into talk radio at certain hours)....occassionally we'd switch to oldies, or classical, or contemporary selections preferred by staff, but our customers generally enjoyed the jazz in the background. Sales seem to do better...no music was almost deadly.

Katheryn