Does royalty-free music still exist? What Sena has said since 2024

What Sena changed on 1 January 2024

Rights-inclusive music was sold as background music where one subscription took care of everything. The makers were not members of Buma/Stemra, and the provider claimed it had also settled the rights in the recordings itself. After the Supreme Court judgment of 2020, Sena tolerated this for a while.

That has come to an end. "As of 1 January 2024, Sena has ended its tolerance policy regarding the use of so-called ‘rights-inclusive’ music. From that date, the statutory obligation to pay Sena an equitable remuneration for the communication to the public of commercial phonograms applies in full to this repertoire as well," Sena writes on its site (our translation). According to Sena, this was announced to providers more than three years in advance (Sena, rights-inclusive music under licence from 2024, in Dutch).

The sentence "royalty-free music no longer exists" does not appear on sena.nl. The closest is an email from Sena of October 2024, quoted by the Gelderland district court in a judgment. "Even music you composed yourself is not ‘royalty-free for Sena’," Sena wrote. Sena lost that case, as explained below (ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175, para. 2.6).

Royalty-free only held for Buma/Stemra because the two organisations work differently. Buma/Stemra can only collect for makers who have joined Buma/Stemra or a sister organisation. Sena collects the fee for released recordings under the law, and is the only party allowed to do so. How the two bills differ further is covered in royalty-free music for commercial use.

Why a licence from the provider does not help you

Article 7 of the Dutch Neighbouring Rights Act provides that you may play a phonogram released for commercial purposes without the consent of the artist and the producer, provided you pay an equitable remuneration. Article 15 says that this remuneration is paid to the designated organisation, which is charged "to the exclusion of others" with collecting and distributing it. That organisation is Sena.

The Dutch Supreme Court decided in 2020 how far this goes. A music publisher and producer had agreed directly with Tel Sell what it would pay for its music, using music by a composer who was not a member of Buma/Stemra. According to the Supreme Court, "not only the power to collect and distribute the equitable remuneration, but also the power to set it" belongs exclusively to Sena (our translation). Artists and producers therefore cannot agree that fee with a user themselves (ECLI:NL:HR:2020:1300, para. 3.1.7). That case concerned television, but district courts apply the same rule to music in a business.

Two examples from 2025. A Chinese restaurant in Overijssel paid a Belgian provider for an SD card with music. The court held that such a provider "cannot be equated" with Sena, awarded the claim of € 1,015.66 and prohibited the restaurant from playing music without a Sena licence (ECLI:NL:RBOVE:2025:2179, paras. 5.6 and 5.7). A Greek restaurant in Limburg had been told by its provider that "everything was taken care of". That case ended in a settlement in which the restaurant agreed to pay € 2,500 to Buma and Sena together, including costs. The court called the provider’s role "highly objectionable" (ECLI:NL:RBLIM:2025:6795, paras. 4.2 and 5.2).

So the licence you buy from a stock music provider covers your arrangements with that provider. The Sena fee is not part of it, even if the contract says it is. What happens when that bill arrives later is covered in a fine from Buma/Stemra.

Sena does not always win

There is one ruling in which Sena lost. A restaurant in Gelderland played only music that its own director had composed, produced and performed. The music was made solely for the restaurant and was not available to anyone else. Sena argued that a fee was due for that as well. The district court rejected the claim on 30 July 2025. The Supreme Court judgment concerns who collects the fee, but "this does not alter the fact that there must be a ‘phonogram released for commercial purposes’, which is not the case here" (ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175, para. 4.7, our translation). That is exactly the ground we stand on. Our music is made for one station, is not released and can be heard by nobody else.

Playing music to improve the atmosphere and sell more does not, according to the court, turn it into a released phonogram. "For that it is at the very least necessary that the phonogram is publicly available," the court wrote. Which equipment you use does not matter either (para. 4.9).

The court did draw a line. A phonogram made available online in such a way that anyone can listen to it at a time and place of their choosing also counts as released, even without any commercial intent (para. 4.6, Article 7(2) of the Act). As soon as self-made music is released or put online, the fee is due after all (para. 4.11). That also explains why stock music does fall under it, because it almost always sits in a catalogue anyone can listen to online. It is, moreover, one judgment by one district court judge, not settled case law.

On the Buma/Stemra side the line lies elsewhere. If the maker is not a member, Buma/Stemra cannot collect. Buma/Stemra does warn that the maker can then still claim money directly, and that it cannot protect you against that. "We as BumaStemra can only protect music users against claims from member music makers," its FAQ says (BumaStemra, do the makers need to be members, in Dutch, our translation). The routes to playing music without those bills are set out in music without Buma and Sena.

And music made entirely by AI?

On the Buma/Stemra side the answer is clear. Buma/Stemra itself states that "works made entirely by AI without human creative input" do not qualify "for registration, copyright or payment" (BumaStemra, works made by AI, in Dutch, our translation). That applies to music with no human composer or lyricist. It does assume the model does not imitate existing music by member makers, and that depends on what it was trained on. That is covered in AI music for business.

On the Sena side it is a position. Under Article 1 of the Act, a performer is a person who performs a work, and with fully generated music there is none. And Article 7 requires a phonogram released for commercial purposes, whereas music generated for a single station and heard only in customers’ premises is not released and not made available to the public. There is no performing artist and the music is not released as a phonogram. That is how we argue it in our legal memorandum.

Sena takes a different view. "The use of (illegal) AI-generated music does not release users from the obligation to pay a fee for the communication of music to the public," Sena writes on its AI page (Sena on AI, in Dutch, our translation). But Sena lost when it claimed a fee in court for music that had not been released. That the law also treats recordings of "other sounds" as a phonogram, not only recordings of a performance, does not change this, because what decides it is whether the music has been released.

With music made entirely by AI there is therefore nothing for Buma/Stemra to collect. For Sena the basis is the Neighbouring Rights Act, which in articles 1 and 7 requires a phonogram released for commercial purposes. Music made for one station and streamed only to that station is not released. On exactly that ground Sena lost a claim before the Gelderland district court in July 2025 (ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2025:6175).

A provider promises music without Buma and Sena. What should you check?

Several providers promise this, and they justify it in different ways. Ask two questions. Why is nothing due to Buma/Stemra, because the makers are not members or because there is no human maker? And why nothing to Sena, has the music ever been released or can it be heard online anywhere?

Ask for the reasoning, not for a certificate. A statement or certificate from a provider does not bind Sena, because Sena looks at the law and at the music you play. Good reasoning names the statutory provisions, the facts about how the music is made and the rulings it relies on, and it is in writing.

Also ask what happens if an invoice arrives anyway. Will the provider help you with the reasoning, and what does the contract say about it? A provider of ordinary stock music who says Sena is included in the price must be able to show that it holds a Sena licence for your business. Otherwise, since 2024, that bill simply lands with you.