Cancelling Buma/Stemra: can you, and how?
You can cancel, but not separately from what can be heard in your premises. The licence is not a subscription you end at will: it belongs to playing music by human authors. Stop doing that and the basis falls away, so you can cancel. Keep playing the same music and cancelling changes nothing about what you owe.
Why you cannot simply cancel
Buma/Stemra and Sena do not invoice a service; they recover a fee that follows from the law. The licence is the form that takes, not the reason you pay.
So cancelling without changing your music does not help: the claim remains, only without the paperwork that governs it. In practice that produces a retroactive invoice rather than a saving.
What does work
You stop playing music for which payment is due and switch to music with no rights holder behind it. Then there is nothing left to collect and you can end the licence.
Notify them in writing, with the date you switched, and keep to hand what you play instead. You will have to be able to show that your music falls outside their repertoire — or, more strongly, that there is no rights holder at all.
A statement from your new supplier belongs with that. Ask for it before you cancel, not after.
What not to do
Stopping payment without cancelling and without changing what you play. Collection continues and the period being recovered only gets longer.
Also not: assuming it will be fine because you never hear anything. Buma/Stemra and Sena collect jointly under mijnlicentie.nl and work with inspections and trade register data.
Tariffs: Buma/Stemra and Sena, tariff year 2026. Sources are published on bumastemra.nl and sena.nl. This is information, not legal advice about your situation.
Work out what you save on your current licence.
Slide in your situation and you will see what you currently pay in music rights every year. That amount disappears, on top of what you save on your current music subscription.
What we provide for that
RadioMatic music is generated entirely by AI. There is no composer, no lyricist, no performing artist and no commercially released phonogram — so no rights holder, and nothing to collect.
That position is set out in full in our legal memorandum, with the articles alongside. That is exactly the document you need to support your cancellation.
Read the legal reasoningQuestions that come with this
Ready to hear it for yourself?
Request access to the beta. Your own station for your business, 14 days free trial, cancel monthly after that.