All you have to know about the permits to play music in private parties
If you are going to get married in Italy, there are some things you must know about permits to play music in private parties.
In this guide, updated to 2022 informations, we will show you necessary steps to make payments in relation to remuneration for author’s right and obtain a permit for playing music during your private party. It’s a sort of “copyright tax”, mandatory in Italy but not present in other parts of the world.
When you decide to organize the Wedding Party in Italy, in a place other than your house (restaurant, villa, castle, etc.), you need to request permits for the music that will be played (by the DJ or the live musician) for the occasion: below, the instructions to pay the “Music Tax“.
Before, we at ProfessionalWeddingDJ, we can immediately reassure you, since it is an easy and fast operation, and we are available, for our customers, to help them in this task!
SIAE, the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers, is the organization in charge with authors’ rights protection.
You can request the permit for music at the SIAE offices or more comfortably ONLINE on SIAE website.
https://www.siae.it/en
Let’s see how to proceed with the ONLINE format for the music tax in Italy
1) First of all you have to create an account.
Three options are available: Associated, Private (user) and Company (user).
Since this guide is specifically aimed at spouses, the Private option must be selected.
Once registered (name, surname, email, tax code, mobile phone number are required), you can access the portal.
2) Login
3) Look at the online services and Click on Permits for Private Parties box
(see photo below: it is the one highlighted in blue)
4) Fill in the online form
First you are required to specify:
the province and the municipality (town) where your event will take place.
(example: Province: Como; Municipality/Town: Menaggio)
the name of the location
NB: sometimes, the name in the list does not correspond exactly to the official one. Do some tests, entering the possible variants.
NB: In some location (usually they are big hotels or villas), more parties can be held simultaneously. In this cases in the menu you can find more rooms of the same location . Before making the selection, check with the person in charge of the location the name of the room, (to avoid having to pay twice!).
In the second screen you have to select:
The type of event (in addition to the Wedding party, you can also find Birthday and other events).
The day of the event.
The start and end time of the event
The number of guests
Once the required fields have been completed the price of your permit is showed.
If you have carried out a simple “test” to verify how much do you have to pay, go back and “logout”.
If you want to finalize the payment, click on “pay now” (Paypal and credit card are accepted). You will receive all the documents (payment receipt and border) related to your permit at the email address you entered to register.
The document you will receive are: payment receipt and the musical program (in Italian “Programma musicale” or “Borderò”).
THE LIST OF SONGS – The musical program, called borderò, is the basic document used to attribute to the rights holders the proceeds collected by the SIAE for the use of musical works.
Then, the bride and groom will have to hand it over to the DJ… but not “phisically”. The system asks the DJ email to send the list to be compiled, entering the titles and authors of the songs played during the day. In the case of DJ, you will have the GREEN borderò, while for live music the “borderò” is RED. At the end of the party, the musician will return it to the SIAE (always digitally) . These parts are all played by the DJ and the bride and groom don’t have to worry about.
How much is the permit? Here below you can find the SIAE official fees
In the last column, you can find the fees 2022 for the wedding parties. The fee depends on the number of guests (two options: less than 200 and more than 200). The difference is noticeable: it goes from 199 to 299 Euros (even if in our experience events with more than 200 guests event are uncommon).
To this amount, a fee must be added for “related rights”, ranging from 79 to 119 euros.
