Local musicians see hope in UAE's new royalty collection system

Tariq Al Nasrawi remembers what it felt like to receive a royalty cheque. After years writing music and working with Universal Music, he co-founded Peninsula Records in Abu Dhabi, and the memory of that support shapes how he views the UAE’s new music licensing requirement. “I have always been incredibly thankful for the work that the Performing Right Society did in collecting royalties on my behalf,” he said. “Perhaps it is my time to give back in some way.”

Starting December 1, restaurants, cafes, hotels, shopping malls, airlines and fitness centres must obtain music licences and pay annual royalties for playing copyrighted material. The Ministry of Economy confirmed the requirement this week, designating Music Nation and the Emirates Music Rights Association as the two authorised bodies to manage the fees.

For many business owners, one structural detail changed the conversation entirely: 10 per cent of all collected fees will flow into a Cultural Support Fund for Music, designed to provide financial, technical and artistic backing to musicians at all career stages. That commitment to returning money directly to creators has shaped how the commercial community views the new obligation.

Hakim Abderrazek, co-founder of Raw Music Store in Dubai, a shop that sells vinyl, demonstrates HiFi equipment and hosts curated listening sessions, put it plainly. “Anything that genuinely supports musicians and helps develop the music ecosystem in the UAE is something I would support,” he told The National. Artists, composers and rights holders, he said, deserve compensation for their work.

Haider Madani, co-founder and managing partner of Cassette, a Dubai music and dining venue, viewed the framework as a natural consequence of how quickly the local scene has grown. “Any new annual cost is a line item for a business, but music is part of Cassette’s DNA,” he said, “so a system that puts value back in the hands of the artists we play every day is one I’m glad to see.” Knowing the fees support musicians directly, he added, altered his perspective on the obligation entirely. “Supporting the creative community here has always been important to us, and this is a tangible way of doing that.”

The fee structure itself remains unpublished four months before implementation. It will be scaled according to business size and music type, with live music and DJ performances attracting higher rates than recorded background music. Non-commercial settings, including schools, government entities and charity events, are exempt.

Meanwhile, practical questions are already surfacing. Abderrazek raised a concern about how the system will distinguish between different uses of music. “There is a significant difference between a business using music simply as background ambience and a record store or HiFi retailer whose entire activity is built around promoting, demonstrating and ultimately selling music,” he said. He compared the situation to asking a television retailer to pay an additional content fee each time it demonstrates a set to a customer.

Despite the uncertainty, none of the business owners suggested the law would fundamentally alter their operations. Al Nasrawi said Peninsula Records will absorb whatever cost materialises. “Whatever happens, we will try our utmost to absorb the cost and continue to bring quality, affordable new and old music to the music lovers in the UAE.”

Abdullah bin Touq, the UAE’s Minister of Economy and Tourism, described the framework as “an important step in enhancing rights management in line with international practice, strengthening the principles of transparency and fairness in their distribution, and improving the regulation of the music sector in a way that supports its growth and prosperity.”

Al Nasrawi, who has lived on both sides of the royalty equation, sees the new requirement as evidence of a scene that has grown large enough to need the infrastructure that more established markets built long ago. “With the UAE’s music scene flourishing, it feels like a natural next step,” he said. Whether the fee schedule, once published, matches that optimism is the question business owners will be watching closely come December.