Many educators think that educators are never going to be sued for copyright violation; that is an incorrect assumption. In Spring 2019, Houston ISD had a lawsuit brought up against them because teachers had copied protected study guide material for distribution and ignored the "don't copy this" warnings at the bottom of the study guides.
I do a few things on my campus to help make sure I stay within copyright law: I use royalty free music at all possible moments for any videos and presentations; I make my music selections for our school be in line with the curriculum standards for our state music curriculum so that our music supports the curriculum being taught by our music department.
I have eight different morning music playlists. Four are full of pop-style music, Four are full of classical-style music. There aren't any songs that repeat on the playlists. The pop-style music lists are titled "Week * Mon Fri" because I listen to them on Mondays and Fridays. The classical-style music lists are titled "Week * Classical" and I listen to them on Tuesdays - Thursdays. Keep reading beyond the example lists below to know my philosophy in how I determined the styles of composers/artists we needed to have in our morning music.
Week A Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like):
Earth, Wind & Fire
LunchMoney Lewis
Diana Ross & Michael Jackson
Jonsi
Dillon Francis
Grace VanderWaal
Panic! At the Disco
Week B Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like):
Village People
Mary J. Blige
Kelly Clarkson
BTS & Charli XCX
The Jacksons
Mary J. Blige
Week C Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like):
Kool & The Gang
Jonas Brothers
Katrina & The Waves
Matt and Kim
Aretha Frankin
Kygo & Rita Ora
KC and the Sunshine Band
Week D Mon Fri (songs are in the style of artists like):
Stevie Wonder
SEVENTEEN
The Jacksons
Imagine Dragons
Jonas Brothers
Pentatonix
The Beatles
Week A Classical (songs are in the style of artists like):
Debussy
Desplat
R. Schumann
Morricone
Bernstein
Faure
The Mantovani Orchestra
Week B Classical (songs are in the style of artists like):
Shankar
Bright Sheng
Mussorgsky
Bun-Ching Lam
Max Richter
Week C Classical (songs are in the style of artists like):
George Walker
Voces8
Marc Melits
Chopin
D. Benard Roumain
McFerrin
Nat King Cole
Dave Brubeck
Week D Classical (songs are in the style of artists like):
Tommy Emmanuel
Adam Holzman
Joaquin Rodrigo
Tango Project
German Nogueira
Leo Brouwer
There's a philosophy to building these playlists, and they centralize around theme and representation. The pop-style playlists will always have uplifting songs that don't talk about relationships, how good a boy/girl looks, etc. The pop-style songs will be about hope, strength, perseverance, and/or moving your body to stay active. The classical-style playlists are 100% representation. Week A is mostly filled with European American composers, Week B is mostly filled with living Asian American composers, Week C is mostly filled with living African American composers, and Week D is mostly filled with living Latin American composers. There are some very old, very dead white people sprinkled into Week B and Week C, but that's only because the style of the composition meets the audible guidelines of the style in which the composers in Week B and Week C created their frameworks of sound.
We keep a device near our sound system with a calendar of music like this that we might play as student arrive. The calendar is your typical grid, month view calendar and has the exact playlist that should be played on each day. This way, the same playlist doesn't get played over and over and over again. (What's interesting about this is that we have staff members who say they hear the same thing every week; they for sure don't because the science of the calendar doesn't fail! We have a top notch person in charge of the playlists and there is rarely an error, if ever, of which list is playing on which day.) When you have a calendar set up in a public place for anyone who has access to the sound device, the calendar is a way to ensure that the knowledge of what should be played isn't kept by ONE person; it's community knowledge!
Representation matters in every single walk of our students' lives. Representation should happen with school posters, read alouds, working novels, and even with morning music. All we have to do is consider doing something differently than plugging in a streaming service and walking away (that's illegal, anyway, so...we probably shouldn't do that any more...). Having a playlist that is balanced with representation of my students helps me to become a balanced educator.