Can taxi drivers legally play music on passenger request? What UK licensing rules actually say
- Perry Richardson
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Whether a taxi driver can legally play music at a passenger’s request is not as straightforward as many in the trade assume. In the UK, the issue hinges on copyright law and whether music played inside a licensed vehicle is classed as a public performance, which would normally require a licence from music rights organisations.
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, playing recorded music outside of a private domestic setting can amount to a public performance. Taxis, private hire vehicles and minicabs are commercial environments, even though they are small and access is limited to the driver and fare-paying passengers. This distinction matters, because public performance of music typically requires permission from rights holders, administered in the UK by PRS for Music and PPL.
PRS for Music covers composers, songwriters and publishers, while PPL represents performers and record companies. Businesses that play recorded music publicly, including shops, offices and hospitality venues, usually need licences from these bodies. In principle, a licensed vehicle falls into the same category, as it is being used for commercial gain and passengers are members of the public rather than private guests.
In practice, enforcement in taxis has historically been minimal, and neither PRS nor PPL are known to actively target individual drivers. However, the absence of enforcement does not remove the underlying legal exposure. There is no blanket exemption in copyright law that specifically allows taxi drivers to play music through the vehicle’s sound system without a licence.
Playing music in taxis sits in a grey area of UK copyright law, with public performance rules, radio exemptions and Bluetooth workarounds all carrying different levels of legal risk.
Radio broadcasts sit on slightly firmer ground, but still not without caveats. Playing the radio in a workplace or commercial setting is also considered a public performance. Many businesses require a PRS and PPL licence to play radio stations audibly to staff or customers. Some limited exemptions exist, mainly for very small premises using domestic radios at low volume, but these are narrowly defined and not explicitly extended to licensed vehicles. As a result, a taxi playing the radio for passengers could, strictly speaking, still fall within licensable use.
The situation changes when passengers connect their own device to the vehicle’s audio system via Bluetooth or cable. In this scenario, the driver is not selecting, controlling or providing the music. The passenger is effectively playing their own privately licensed content from a personal device. This significantly reduces risk for the driver, as the music is not being supplied as part of the service and the driver is not authorising or initiating the performance. While not tested extensively in court, legal interpretations might consider this closer to private use by the passenger rather than a public performance by the driver.
Many operators have quietly adopted this approach, either by leaving the audio system disconnected or explicitly allowing passengers to play their own music if they wish. From a risk management perspective, this is the safest option available without obtaining a formal music licence.
For drivers who wish to offer music proactively, the only fully compliant route would be to hold appropriate PRS and PPL licences covering in-vehicle use. These licences are not commonly marketed to individual drivers and would almost certainly be disproportionate in cost and administration for sole traders, which partly explains why uptake across the sector is negligible.
Local licensing authorities generally do not police music copyright compliance, and conditions attached to taxi and private hire licences rarely address the issue directly. However, that does not override national copyright law, and complaints or disputes could theoretically expose drivers to claims.
For now, playing music on request remains widespread and largely unchallenged, but it is not risk-free. Allowing passengers to control their own audio via Bluetooth looks to offer the clearest mitigation, while relying on radio or driver-selected playlists sits in a legal grey zone that the industry has so far avoided confronting directly.
