SACEM Play brings Deezer-powered music to independent businesses
SACEM and Deezer are launching a new professional music service for independent businesses, designed to make playing music in commercial spaces easier while helping ensure creators are properly remunerated.
Music is a big part of the atmosphere in shops, cafés, restaurants and other businesses. Now, SACEM and Deezer are teaming up to give independent businesses a dedicated way to play music in their spaces.
Called SACEM Play, the new service will let independent businesses play music for their customers through a professional music platform. Deezer is providing the technology, music catalogue and curation, while SACEM will handle the customer relationship and rights side of the service.
The service is expected to begin its gradual rollout in early 2027.
What is SACEM Play?
In simple terms, SACEM Play is Deezer-powered music streaming for businesses.
Rather than using a personal streaming account to provide the soundtrack to a shop, café, salon or other independent business, SACEM Play is being built specifically for commercial environments.
Businesses will be able to access music suited to their space, while the service provides a framework for the music being played to be properly accounted for.
It will sit alongside Deezer for Professionals, which is already aimed at larger businesses and companies with multiple zones. SACEM Play is specifically being developed for independent businesses.
How could it benefit music creators?
This is where the announcement becomes particularly relevant to artists, songwriters and labels. SACEM says the usage data generated by SACEM Play will help it allocate authors’ rights more accurately.
Essentially, if the service can provide clearer information about which music is being played in businesses, rights organisations have better data to work with when distributing money to the relevant creators.
It doesn’t mean SACEM Play automatically creates a new royalty stream for every artist. Instead, it is about creating a clearer system for accounting for music when it is used commercially.
Part of a wider focus on music rights
SACEM Play also builds on the existing relationship between SACEM and Deezer.
The two organisations have previously worked together on Deezer’s Artist Centric remuneration model, while SACEM also uses Deezer’s technology to help detect music that is entirely AI-generated.
Together, these developments point towards a wider industry focus on identifying music usage and making sure the appropriate rights holders can be recognised and remunerated.
For independent artists and labels, the wider takeaway is that where and how your music is used matters. Keeping your releases, metadata and rights information properly organised becomes increasingly important as music reaches audiences through more channels.
What does this mean for artists?
There is nothing artists need to do specifically for SACEM Play yet, with the service not expected to launch until 2027.
For now, the bigger takeaway is that music can create value in more places than traditional streaming. Getting your catalogue distributed across major platforms gives listeners more opportunities to discover and engage with your music, while keeping your metadata and rights information accurate helps ensure your releases are properly represented.
RouteNote helps you distribute your music to Deezer, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, TIDAL and more.