Exercise Music in Australia: What Studios Can Play (2026)

Exercise music in Australian studios is a public performance, not a Spotify workout mix. Class vs floor vs headphones, OneMusic Fitness. VibeBeats is direct-licensed background music for cafés, restaurants, bars, gyms, retail stores, salons, spas, clinics and hotels. No music licensing/PRO fees (*No separate public-performance music licence needed for VibeBeats music.) Other music sources may still require licensing. The AI DJ reshapes each playlist through the trading day.

If the room can hear it — a booked class, a PT session, the studio speakers — exercise music is a commercial public performance in Australia. A Spotify “Workout Music” playlist, a YouTube mix, a Pixabay download or a Shape listicle is what a member listens to in headphones. It is not a venue licence.

Immediate action steps:

Split every audible source into three buckets: timetabled class, floor or background speakers, and personal headphones the member brought in. Treat consumer workout mixes as programming research only — they do not grant public-performance rights for a studio, gym or PT session. Confirm in writing whether class and floor sources are OneMusic Fitness / Exercise & Wellbeing repertoire or a directly licensed catalogue. Keep instructor phones and personal Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube accounts off the PA until that file exists.

The rest of this guide is the operator version of “exercise music”: class versus floor versus headphones, why the pages that rank for the term are not a licence, and how a direct-licensed catalogue fits. For the gym-wide licence brief, use gym music.

Key Takeaways

Exercise music in an Australian studio is a public-performance question first. Consumer workout playlists rank the SERP; they do not clear a class.

— Point — Details — — --- — --- — — The search is consumer, the job is commercial — AU results for “exercise music” are Spotify artist pages, Power Music, YouTube mixes, Pixabay, Epidemic Sound and song listicles. Those pages pick tracks. They do not licence a venue. — — Class, floor and headphones are different acts — A booked class and a PT session are public. Floor speakers are public. A member’s own headphones are private listening — they do not licence the PA. — — Fitness / Exercise & Wellbeing is the scheme — AUSactive and OneMusic point gyms, studios and PT sessions to Fitness, Exercise & Wellbeing when copyright-protected music is used. — — A personal stream is not exercise music — Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Personal do not grant public-performance rights. — — Direct licence is catalogue-scoped — VibeBeats covers master + publishing for the VibeBeats catalogue only — see current pricing; 14-day trial, no card. —

What “exercise music” means in a studio

Exercise music is the soundtrack of a commercial workout: the class playlist, the PT speaker, the studio PA. In Australia that use is a public performance under the Copyright Act 1968. business.gov.au is blunt: gyms need a licence to play copyrighted music, and buying an album or paying for a streaming service only covers personal use.

That is the opposite of what Google serves for the query. The AU SERP is built for a person building a workout mix at home — Spotify’s “Workout Music” artist, Power Music compilations, YouTube “exercise mix” videos, Pixabay and Epidemic Sound downloads, Shape and uDiscover song lists. Useful if you are choosing BPM for a personal run. Useless as proof that a studio may perform those tracks out loud.

AUSactive’s music-licensing FAQ is the operator document. Music played out loud in a gym, a yoga studio, a CrossFit session or a PT session is legally different from music at home. A licence is more important than volume, speakers, streaming service or device. If you run classes — indoor or outdoor, HIIT, circuit, boxing, martial arts, aquatic fitness, boot camps — and you use copyright-protected music, the Fitness, Exercise & Wellbeing scheme is the collecting-society path.

Do not treat a ranked playlist as a clearance.

Pro Tip: If the only “licence” you can produce is a screenshot of a Spotify workout playlist, you have programming, not permission.

Class vs floor vs personal headphones

One studio, three legal facts. Operators who treat “the exercise playlist” as one thing miss two of them.

Timetabled class. The room is booked. An instructor is leading. Members paid for that hour. Music from the studio speakers — or from a Bluetooth speaker the instructor paired — is a commercial public performance. Headphones on some members do not change that. OneMusic’s Fitness, Exercise & Wellbeing scheme is written for this use.

Floor / background. Weights, cardio, reception, the stretch area. If speakers are on and the music is not tied to a class, it is still public. OneMusic’s own Fitness page says purely background play (not a timetabled class) sits on the Retail and Service Providers scheme, sized on square metres and source. A boutique studio that only runs classes does not get a free floor pass if the same playlist leaks into the waiting area.

Personal headphones. A member who walks in with their own phone and their own “exercise music” mix is listening privately. That is not your public performance. It also does not licence your speakers. You cannot point at “everyone has AirPods” and skip the class or floor clearance.

PT sessions sit with the class bucket when the trainer’s speaker is audible to the client in a commercial space — indoors or outdoors. AUSactive lists PT sessions in the same sentence as gyms and yoga studios.

For Spotify’s own terms on gym playback, use Can You Play Spotify in Your Gym?. For venue-grade programming once the source is legal, use gym workout music.

Pro Tip: Walk a peak class and a quiet floor hour. Write down who pressed play. The person who owns the phone is not the person who owns the licence.

Consumer workout mixes are not a venue licence

This is the gap the ranking pages leave open.

A Power Music or Epidemic Sound download can be a legitimate source if the supplier’s commercial terms actually cover public performance in an Australian fitness business — and you keep the certificate. A YouTube “best exercise songs 2026” video, a Pixabay MP3, or a staff login to Spotify’s Workout Music artist does not.

Three failure modes show up in studios:

The ranked mix as the class tape. An instructor plays a YouTube or Spotify workout mix through the PA because that is what members search for. The search intent is personal listening. The performance is commercial. The “royalty-free” USB. Pixabay-style files are often licensed for personal or content use, not for a paid class in a gym. “Royalty-free” is not a synonym for “cleared for public performance in Australia.” The production-music assumption. Epidemic Sound and similar libraries can be the right tool for video. A class is not a YouTube video. Check whether the plan you bought includes venue or fitness public performance, or only content creation.

OneMusic is explicit: a streaming subscription does not automatically give you the legal right to play that music in your business. AUSactive adds that a OneMusic licence does not override the Terms of Use of a personal digital music service — so even a correctly paid Fitness licence does not turn Spotify into a studio player.

Short licence pointer, not a retell: collecting-society fees for gyms and studios are quoted by OneMusic against how you use the music, not guessed here. The gym-wide definition and cost path live on gym music and music licensing cost for a gym in Australia.

How a direct-licensed catalogue fits

There is a lawful fork that does not depend on a consumer workout brand.

If every recording the class and the floor can hear is outside OneMusic repertoire because you have a written direct licence from the owners of both the master and the publishing, you still need that paperwork — you do not need a second collecting-society invoice for those tracks.

That is the VibeBeats model: one subscription (current pricing) covering master and publishing for the VibeBeats catalogue, with a 14-day trial and no card required. It is not a OneMusic agent. It does not authorise radio, Spotify, Les Mills, Power Music, Epidemic Sound, or anyone else’s recordings.

What studios actually get:

• Licensed exercise music for class rooms and floor speakers — the catalogue is cleared for public performance. • No hardware. Existing speakers, a tablet, phone, laptop, or the optional Vibe Box. • Certificate of Compliance per premises, verifiable at vibebeats.ai/verify. • 14-day trial, no card required, no hardware install, no long contract.

What you still own: keeping non-catalogue sources off the PA, including the instructor’s personal workout mix “just for this session.”

Learn more on the gym industry page, or start a 14-day free trial. For AI-curated gym programming as further reading, see best AI music for gyms.

Sources

• Playing music in your business — business.gov.au

This article is general information for Australian studio, gym and PT operators, not legal advice. Confirm your own facts with OneMusic, a qualified lawyer, or the Australian Copyright Council before you change licences.

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