Cover songs: mechanical licences and what you must declare

56 · 2026-09-24 · 20 min read · Español

You need no licence to put a cover on Spotify or Apple Music: the service holds one, in the United States through The MLC and in Canada from CMRRA. You need one the moment you sell a copy yourself — a download, a CD, a record. The licence is per song, per format and per territory, and in the United States the 2026 rate is 13.1 cents a copy. What you declare is that the track is a cover, every original writer in the songwriter field, the publisher on the licence, and no original artist’s name anywhere in the title or the artist fields.

A cover is a new recording of a song somebody else wrote and released. You own the recording; the writers and their publisher own the song, and section 115 of the US Copyright Act lets you record it without asking them, for a fee set by regulation.
Interactive streams need nothing from you: the streaming service holds the blanket mechanical licence in the US, and CMRRA licenses the services directly in Canada. A download or a physical copy you sell needs a mechanical licence per song, and in Canada a CMRRA licence.
The US statutory rate for 2026 is 13.1 cents per copy, or 2.52 cents per minute of playing time for a song over five minutes, per song, adjusted every January. CMRRA’s physical rate starts at 8.3 cents per copy.
The licence lets you change key, tempo, instrumentation and style. It does not let you change the basic melody or fundamental character, rewrite or translate the lyrics, sample the original recording or remix it — each of those needs the owner’s permission.
Declare the cover on the upload form, credit every original songwriter as a songwriter, name the publisher, and keep the original artist’s name out of every title and artist field: Apple and Spotify both refuse it there.

Do you need a licence to release a cover song?

Not for streaming, where the service holds the licence; yes for every download or physical copy you sell yourself, per song and per format.

Start with the statute, because the whole subject is one section of it. Section 115 of the US Copyright Act is the compulsory licence for nondramatic musical works — the royalty map quotes its opening sentence and glosses it in one line: the song’s owner is not asked. The condition sits in clause (i): the licence exists once “phonorecords of such musical work have previously been distributed to the public in the United States under the authority of the copyright owner of the work.” Released, in the US, by the owner. A song that has been out is a song you may record. Congress built a door into copyright and put a turnstile in it.

Who walks through it depends on the format. For a stream, the statute’s answer is that the streaming service does: a digital music provider obtains a blanket licence for permanent downloads, limited downloads and interactive streams through the mechanical licensing collective, which is The MLC, and what that licence covers and what it refuses is its own page. Your distributor’s help centre says the same thing in the words a reader needs. CD Baby: “No, mechanical licensing isn’t required for your music to be available on streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Streaming companies are responsible for paying out all royalties to the publishers themselves.” And in Canada, where the statute above does not reach, CMRRA says it about its own repertoire: “If you plan to distribute recordings to Canadian consumers via a licensed third-party online music service, such as iTunes, Spotify, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), TikTok, or YouTube, you are not required to obtain a reproduction rights licence for the musical works embedded in those recordings. In Canada, CMRRA licences these services directly.” Two countries, one answer: the stream is the service’s problem.

The copy you sell is yours. A download from Bandcamp or your own site, a CD at the merch table, a run of vinyl — each is a phonorecord you made and distributed, and the licence for it is yours to obtain. The statute gives a “record company” — defined as an entity that invests in, produces, markets and distributes sound recordings for money through more than one channel, which is a fair description of a self-releasing artist — an individual download licence under §115(b)(3), and a physical licence under §115(b)(1); CMRRA’s next sentence covers the same ground north of the border: “If you plan to stream or sell digital downloads via 3rd party distributors (such as CD Baby and Bandcamp) or plan to stream or sell digital downloads from your own website, please contact CMRRA for licensing.” The consequence of skipping it is written into the section too. Without a licence, voluntary or compulsory, the statute “renders the making and distribution of phonorecords actionable as acts of infringement under section 501.” Not a fee. An infringement.

Then the layer that is not law and behaves like it. Your distributor may require a licence whatever the statute says about your format, and the three that publish a policy publish three different ones. DistroKid: “You must purchase a DistroKid cover license each and every time you upload a cover song to DistroKid.” CD Baby: “regardless of your distribution level, our policy requires that you acquire at least a digital download license to distribute your cover song through CD Baby.” TuneCore: “If you want to distribute and sell a cover song with TuneCore, you will need to obtain a mechanical license from the original copyright holder before you release your song digitally.” Each is the distributor’s rule, stated as the distributor’s. The statute sets the floor; the company you upload through sets the door.

What does a mechanical licence cost, and who sells you one?

In the US, 13.1 cents a copy or 2.52 cents a minute for 2026, whichever is larger; CMRRA’s Canadian physical rate starts at 8.3 cents.

The US number is a regulation, not a negotiation. 37 CFR §385.11: “For the year 2026 for every physical phonorecord and Permanent Download the Licensee makes and distributes or authorizes to be made and distributed, the royalty rate payable for each work embodied in the phonorecord or Permanent Download shall be either 13.1 cents or 2.52 cents per minute of playing time or fraction thereof, whichever amount is larger.” Per copy, per song: a ten-track album of covers owes ten of those on every unit. The per-minute rate takes over the moment a song passes five minutes: a fraction of a minute counts as a whole one, so 5:01 is six minutes and 15.12 cents. And the number moves: the same section adjusts both rates every year to the consumer price index from a twelve-cent base and publishes the new figure at least twenty-five days before January 1. Whatever you read on a help page, check the year on it.

Where you get the licence is a shorter list than it looks. The statute’s own route is a notice: for a physical copy, §115(b)(1) says to serve a notice of intention on the copyright owner “before, or not later than 30 calendar days after, making, and before distributing, any phonorecord of the work,” and if the Copyright Office’s records do not name the owner and an address, to file it with the Office instead. The Office states the shape of that fallback since the Music Modernization Act in two sentences: it “no longer accepts section 115 notices of intention to obtain a compulsory license for making a digital phonorecord delivery of a musical work” and “will continue to accept notices of intention with respect to phonorecords that are not digital phonorecord deliveries (e.g., for CDs, vinyl records, tapes, and other physical media).” You can serve your own notice; an agency will do it for a fee, and the agency is the route the distributors use. HFA’s Songfile says it licenses cover songs “for physical and digital formats such as CDs, downloads, ringtones and streams,” and a reader without a browser cannot get past its front page, so its fees and unit limits are not printed here.

The distributors sell the same licence bundled with the upload, and each publishes its own terms. DistroKid charges “a fee of $1 per month ($12 billed to your credit card on file)” per cover song, secures the licence through the Harry Fox Agency, allows “up to 14 business days” for it, and then “will automatically deduct the legally-mandated fee of 12.7¢ per song sold in the U.S. from your earnings and send it to HFA, who sends it to the original songwriter.” Read that figure against the regulation above: 12.7 cents is the number the page carries on the date this piece was written, and 13.1 is the regulation’s figure for 2026: the page trails the rule, which is what a printed rate does. TuneCore sells nothing itself and points at “The Harry Fox Agency or our partner company, TuneLicensing.” CD Baby no longer licenses covers and says to get one “from a third-party service like Easy Song or directly from the composition’s copyright owner, usually the original publisher.” Three distributors, three programmes, one statute underneath all of them.

Canada has its own door and its own price. CMRRA — which since 2026-09-01 belongs to SOCAN, whose release says CMRRA continues “operating with current reproduction rights services” — licenses a cover on a physical product through its Pay-As-You-Press licence: a rate “starting at $0.083 per copy for a 5 minute or less duration, and adding $0.0166 ($0.083 divided by 5 minutes) for each additional minute of playing time,” royalties paid up front, and “a minimum of 500 copies per contrivance (e.g., per product type, such as 500 CDs or 500 vinyl records).” Press two hundred and the licence still covers you up to five hundred; press the five-hundred-and-first and you apply again. CMRRA also tells you to search its repertoire before applying, because it “may not represent all or part of a work’s ownership” — and that sentence is the honest limit of what this page can say about Canada. No Canadian statute read here hands you a licence the way section 115 does; what exists is the licence CMRRA sells for the works it represents, and the publisher for the rest. The country that was a footnote on your US licence is a separate application.

Which is the scope rule, and CD Baby states all three halves of it. “A standard compulsory mechanical license authorizes distribution in the United States only.” “A physical license will not cover sales of a digital release. You must obtain a digital download license for your cover song.” “You must limit the distribution to the territory(s) your license authorizes.” DistroKid’s version of the same fact is a list of countries: releases with cover songs “will not be available for sale in India, Pakistan, Mexico, or Canada, but will be available for streaming in those countries.” A physical licence does not cover the download, a download licence does not cover the CD, and a US licence does not cover Canada. Three licences for one recording if you sell it three ways. A licence for the wrong format is not worth crap.

What may you change, and what turns a cover into something else?

Key, tempo, instrumentation and style; not the melody, the fundamental character, the lyrics or the language, and never another recording.

The licence carries a privilege and a limit in one clause: you may arrange the song to fit your performance, the arrangement may not change its basic melody or fundamental character, and it takes no copyright of its own without the owner’s express consent — the two-copyrights piece quotes §115(a)(2) in full, and this page does not repeat it. In practice the line is where every licensing page draws it. DistroKid’s requirements: the song “does not fundamentally alter the original lyrics or title” and “does not change the basic melody or fundamental character,” with the gloss that “Genre changes and embellishments for cover songs are totally okay and encouraged. Language changes are probably not okay.” CMRRA, for Canada: “the music and lyrics must remain the same as the original. Changes to the lyrics, melody, or structure require approval from the publisher(s) and possibly the author(s) before a license can be granted. If multiple publishers own the work, all must approve.” A reggae version of a folk song is a cover. The same song with your verse in it is a derivative work, and the licence you bought does not reach it.

The other boundary is the recording. Section 115 refuses a compulsory licence for phonorecords duplicating a sound recording fixed by another — the map quotes the refusal — which is why a remix and a sample are not covers, whatever the form calls them. DistroKid: “A remix of another artist’s music is not the same thing as a cover. A cover is if you played the song yourself. A remix requires the permission of the original artist.” TuneCore, on remixes, samples, interpolations and mashups: “you must have a Master Use license from the owner of that original recording to distribute these releases. These CANNOT be issued by a third-party licensor.” A cover built on somebody else’s master is a Trojan horse with the paperwork for the horse.

Two cases at the edges. A song that has never been released is not eligible: clause (i) requires prior distribution, and CD Baby names the paper that fills the gap — a song “someone gave you permission to record and release but has never been recorded and released before” needs “a ‘first use’ license obtained directly from the composition’s copyright owner.” DistroKid’s list of what cannot be licensed runs the same way: a song released “only in some country that was not the United States,” a film-score cue never released on its own, “Medleys, mashups, etc.” And a song in the public domain needs no licence at all, with one catch the FAQ below carries: the arrangement you are singing may not be public domain even when the song is. Whether your own arrangement of one can be registered, and as what, is the writer-roles piece’s question.

What do you declare in the metadata?

The cover flag, every original writer as songwriter, the publisher on the licence, and no original artist’s name in any title or artist field.

The form asks first. DistroKid’s upload has a field headed “Songwriter / Cover Song” with the option “Another artist wrote it (it’s a cover song),” and that choice is what tells its system to deduct the writer’s cents from your sales. CD Baby’s steps are the most explicit of the three pages about what a cover declaration is: select “Cover Song” under composition type, indicate that you have secured a licence, choose “Licensing Agency,” provide “the License ID and the name of the license provider,” add “the original songwriter(s)’ name(s) to the track,” and enter “the name of the original publisher as it appears on your license.” TuneCore states the writer rule as a rule: “You MUST credit all original songwriters of cover songs with the role ‘Songwriter.’” Which songwriter role, and what the stores do with it, is the field map’s row; the cover artist is a performer on a recording and takes none of them.

Then the rule everybody breaks. Both stores refuse the original artist’s name anywhere near yours. Apple’s style guide, §2.12, on cover albums among others: “the name of the original artist must not be displayed in any artist field on the track level or the album level.” And §3.16, on titles: “Track or ringtone titles for cover, orgel, parody songs, or tributes must not make reference to the original artist. Do not use phrases such as ‘Originally Performed By,’ ‘In the Style of,’ ‘Tribute to,’ or ‘Cover of.’” Spotify’s guide, §13.1, adds a fifth phrase, “Made Famous By,” and gives the example: I’m Yours (Originally Performed By Jason Mraz) is unacceptable; I’m Yours is the title. TuneCore’s pairs say the same for the artist fields — the original performer goes in neither Main nor Featuring. The name has one legal home in the metadata, and it is the writer field, where it belongs only if the original artist also wrote the song. Everywhere else it is somebody else’s name on your recording.

What you may write is the version. Apple lists Cover Version among its acceptable version terms, and Spotify’s own acceptable example is I’m Yours (Acoustic Cover) — the word cover is fine; the name after it is not. Everything else about the string — case, language, what goes in the version field — is the title piece’s. The codes follow the same split as the credits: the recording is yours, so the ISRC is yours, and the song is theirs, so the ISWC is the original’s — the version table already has the row.

One more refusal, and it is about the audio rather than the fields. Apple, §1.13: “Sound-alikes, cover versions, or tribute songs that sound very similar to the original, aren’t accepted.” TuneCore adds what happens next — stores hide them, it will not reinstate them, and “soundalike covers may also be subject to infringement claims from the copyright holder.” Apple will take your cover and refuse your impression.

What does a cover pay you, and what does it pay the writers?

You are paid for the recording only; the writers are paid the mechanical and the performance royalty on every play of your version.

Your side is the recording’s. A stream of your cover pays the recording royalty to you through the distributor statement, exactly as it would for a song you wrote; a non-interactive play in the US pays you through SoundExchange, as the featured artist and the recording’s owner; a broadcast outside the US pays you through the neighbouring right of the country it played in. None of that is smaller because the song is not yours.

Their side is the song’s, and every play of your version feeds it. The stream’s mechanical goes from the service to The MLC and on to the writers you named; the PRO pays them the performance and, in that piece’s words, pays the performer nothing; a download you sold pays them the cents the licence fixed. There is nothing for you to register on the song side, and TuneCore says so where the confusion starts: “obtaining a mechanical license to distribute a cover does not grant you rights to register your work for publishing. You must be a credited writer of the underlying composition in order to register a work for publishing.” The writers were paid before you sang a note, and they are paid again every time you do. That is the deal, and it is not a bad one. The song was the expensive part.

What to check before you upload

Released in the US already; which formats you sell; one licence per song, format and territory; the writers, the title and your codes.

Has the song been released in the United States, by its owner? If not, there is no compulsory licence and you need the owner’s permission directly.
Which formats are you selling yourself? Streams need nothing from you. Every download and every physical unit you sell needs a licence — one per song, per format, per territory — and the distributor may require one regardless.
Did you change anything but the performance? A new lyric, a translation, a sample or a remix is not a cover and the licence does not reach it.
Are the writers named, as writers, and the publisher as it appears on the licence?
Is the original artist’s name absent from every title and artist field? The word cover may stay; the name may not.
Is the ISRC yours and the ISWC theirs?

The same six questions are asked of every track at once in the audit checklist, where a cover is one row with two owners.

FAQ

Can I put my cover on YouTube?

Not under a mechanical licence: a video is not a phonorecord, so section 115 does not reach it, and the permission for sound on picture is the publisher’s to give. YouTube’s own page says music publishers claim cover videos through Content ID and that creators in the YouTube Partner Program share the revenue from claimed cover videos on a pro rata basis. Whether a given publisher claims or blocks is the publisher’s decision, and nothing here predicts it.

Do I need a licence if I give the cover away for free?

Yes. Section 115 counts a phonorecord as distributed once the licensee has voluntarily and permanently parted with its possession, and a price is not part of that test. Songfile’s page says the same in plain words: a mechanical licence is required regardless of whether or not you are selling the copies.

What if the song is in the public domain?

No mechanical licence and no royalty: CMRRA states that a song confirmed to be in the public domain needs no licence, DistroKid says the same, and CD Baby’s form takes Traditional as the songwriter and Public Domain as the publisher. The caveat CMRRA states is that many arrangements of public-domain works are themselves copyrighted and a licence is required to reproduce those, so a recording of somebody’s published arrangement is licensed like any other song. Your own arrangement of a public-domain work can be registered, and the piece on writer roles says how.

Sources

17 U.S.C. §115 — (a)(1)(A)(i), the prior-distribution condition; (a)(1)(B), no compulsory licence for duplicating another’s recording; (a)(2), the arrangement privilege and its limit; (b)(1), the notice of intention for physical phonorecords and the Copyright Office fallback; (b)(3) and (e)(26), the record company’s individual download licence and the definition of a record company; (b)(4), the failure to obtain a licence as infringement; (c)(1)(B), a phonorecord distributed once possession is voluntarily and permanently parted with; (d)(1)(A) and (e)(7), the blanket licence and covered activity.
37 CFR §385.11 — (a)(1), the 2026 rate for physical phonorecords and permanent downloads; (a)(2), the annual adjustment to the CPI-U from the 12-cent and 2.31-cent base rates, published at least 25 days before January 1.
US Copyright Office, Notice of Intention to Obtain a Compulsory License — Section 115 — that the Office no longer accepts notices for digital phonorecord deliveries and continues to accept them for CDs, vinyl, tapes and other physical media.
Harry Fox Agency, Songfile — that it licenses cover songs for physical and digital formats including CDs, downloads, ringtones and streams, and that a mechanical licence is required regardless of whether the copies are sold.
DistroKid, Uploading Cover Songs to DistroKid — the definition of a cover song; the five requirements; what can and cannot be licensed; the $1-a-month fee; licences secured by HFA; up to 14 business days; the 12.7¢ per US sale deducted and sent to HFA.
DistroKid, Why Am I Required to Purchase My Cover Song License Through DistroKid? — the upload form’s “Another artist wrote it (it’s a cover song)” option; the four countries where cover releases are not for sale but are streamed; a licence required on every upload.
TuneCore, Distributing Cover Songs, Remixes, Mixtapes, MashUps, Samples, or Interpolations — a mechanical licence from HFA or TuneLicensing; that a cover licence grants no right to register the work for publishing; the sound-alike warning; the songwriter-credit rule and the title pairs; the master use licence for remixes, samples, interpolations and mashups.
CD Baby, Can I release a cover song through CD Baby? — the download-licence minimum; that streaming needs no licence from the artist; the US-only scope, the physical/digital split and the territory restriction; the six submission steps; the first-use licence; Traditional and Public Domain as field values; Easy Song or the publisher directly.
Apple, Apple Music Style Guide — §1.13, sound-alikes and cover versions that sound very similar to the original not accepted; §2.12, the original artist’s name in no artist field; §3.9, Cover Version among acceptable version terms; §3.16, the four banned phrases in a cover title.
Spotify, Spotify Metadata Style Guide — §13.1, the five banned phrases and the I’m Yours examples; §13.2, no deceptive artist names or titles on a cover product.
CMRRA, FAQ — that no reproduction licence is needed for a licensed online service because CMRRA licenses the services directly; that Bandcamp, CD Baby-type distribution and your own website are a licence to ask CMRRA for; that the music and lyrics must remain the same as the original; that a public-domain song needs no licence and a copyrighted arrangement of one does.
CMRRA, Pay-As-You-Press — the rate per copy and per additional minute, the 500-copy minimum per product type, royalties paid up front, further pressings covered to 500, publisher authorisation for any change to a work, and the instruction to search the repertoire first.
CMRRA, SOCAN Announces Completion of CMRRA Acquisition (2026-09-02) — that SOCAN completed the acquisition on 2026-09-01 and that CMRRA continues operating with its current reproduction rights services.
YouTube, Monetizing eligible cover videos — that music publishers claim cover videos through Content ID and that Partner Program creators share revenue from claimed cover videos pro rata.

Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece. The three distributors’ help centres refuse a plain fetch and were read through their article APIs, at the addresses linked; help pages change without notice, and DistroKid’s per-sale figure already trails the regulation. Songfile’s fees and unit limits are behind a page that serves no text without a browser, so none is printed. Whether Canada’s Copyright Act offers a route equivalent to section 115 was not established from a primary source; what is stated is what CMRRA publishes. Rates are the regulation’s and CMRRA’s at the date read; confirm the year before you pay. This is not legal advice.

Keeping the register

A cover is the one track in a catalogue whose codes belong to two different owners: the ISRC is yours and the ISWC is theirs, and the writers on it are people who are not you. CatalogTracker keeps a track’s ISRC and ISWC as two fields and keeps its writers as parties with their roles on the track, so the record of a cover is the recording as yours and the work as theirs. It licenses nothing and pays nobody. It means that when the form asks who wrote this, the answer is on file rather than in a text thread from the session. In development for iPhone.