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Anyone here have any experience in placing cover songs? If so, did you go direct to the music sup or was it through a library? Also, any idea on which libraries are more open to accepting cover songs?
You can put covers on musicsupervisor.com. I have some but never a placement…
bump
Remember, there are two separate licenses required, master and sync. Master license money goes to the owner of of the master recording. Sync license money goes to the composer/song writer. It’s up to whomever is licensing a master recording of a cover tune to also obtain the proper sync license from owner of the copyright.
The creator of the cover version has most likely paid the statutory rate mechanical royalty to the copyright holder.
Maybe this is a US based thing, but here there’s an extra layer to all this when a commercial license is involved. Yes, there are the usual mechanical royalties, usually split between a label and the writer, and someone making an album to sell to the public must get this clearance.
However, when you are doing a cover for potential licensing, you actually still have to get permission from the copyright owner (usually a label) to do it, and in many cases that involves the original creator of the track.
So not only do you have to get a mechanical license the usual way to sell the cover to the public (Harry Fox), you need a good connection with the label that owns a song, in order to get them to sign off on the rendition and commercial use of the song. You could create an amazing cover, get the clearance from Harry Fox, and the public loves to download it from iTunes, but never be able to LICENSE it for commercial use because someone at the label (and maybe the artist) doesn’t approve it.
I know that trailer music companies go as far as to only target songs from labels they have connections to, and by artists (or estates) who are open to commercialization of their music.
Thanks for clarifying Mark. I would have thought that permission/approval to use a cover version commercially was granted solely by the copyright holder either issuing or not issuing a sync license.
So let’s see if I understand this correctly:
An artist pays for and is granted a mechanical license through Harry Fox for digital distribution of a cover tune. A year later a company asks for a master license to use the cover in a TV commercial. The artist and owner of the master recording agrees. The company then goes to the copyright holder asking for a sync license. The request is either agreed or denied.
But, if the artist is not seeking digital distribution via a mechanical license, because he or she wishes to create the cover strictly for commercial licensing, then permission must be granted from the copyright owner. But permission for what? A mechanical license is compulsory (as long as the song has been previously recorded) and the rate is statutory. So they’re not asking for a mechanical license. What exactly are they asking for and what does it cost? And, once this permission is given, does the copyright holder still have the right to deny any given sync license?
I guess I don’t understand it correctly. 🙂
Hi Michael,
Maybe I can clarify. Mechanical royalties are paid for the sale/duplication (copies) of a work. In the “old days” labels used to pay mechanicals based on the number of records or CDs actually manufactured. It didn’t matter if those records or CDs were ever sold.
Synchronization licensing is a completely different thing apart from manufactured goods or digital downloads. It is not covered by mechanical royalties. You must 1) obtain permission from the rights holders and 2) negotiate splits if permission is granted. I would guess that most rights holders will want the split to be heavily in their favor.
An additional consideration involves the actual production/arrangement of the song. Suppose you wanted to take Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” and do a Hip Hop cover version called “Yesterdaze.” Maybe it would meet all the criteria of a parody, but maybe not. In that case, you’d have a derivative work, which raises other issues.
Cheers,
_Michael
Thanks Michael! I do understand a sync license is not covered by mechanical royalties. In my post, I wrote “Remember, there are two separate licenses required, master and sync.” Mark clarified by writing “but there’s an extra layer to all this when a commercial license is involved”. I don’t understand what the extra layer is, how much it costs, and why isn’t it covered by a sync license.
I don’t understand what the extra layer is, how much it costs, and why isn’t it covered by a sync license.
The extra layer is negotiating with the copyright owner/ rights holder for permission to obtain sync licenses and then negotiating over fees. When it comes to sync licenses they can say no. As far as cost goes, the sky is the limit. It’s at the rights holder’s discretion.
I understand all that, thanks. I guess what threw me was Mark’s clarification of:
“when you are doing a cover for potential licensing, you actually still have to get permission from the copyright owner”
If I’m hired by a company to create a cover for a specific licensing opportunity, then obviously permission is needed from the copyright owner in the form of a sync license which someone is going to pay for. If I’m creating a cover for potential licensing, this reads to me like there is no specific opportunity in place, but potentially this recording could be offered a master license sometime in the future, and at which time the sync license would also be pursued.
Why does one need permission (aside from a compulsory mechanical license if selling to the public) to do a cover for potential opportunities, when each specific opportunity is covered by a negotiating a sync license?
Why does one need permission
There’s more than money at stake. When you upload tracks to a library, do you ever limit their usages, e.g. no “racial hate, “violence,” or “gore,” etc.?
The copyright holder’s “bundle of rights” allows them to control how their work get’s used. It gives writers the power to protect the image and integrity of their work, and thus how it is used.If that right could be circumvented by unrestricted cover versions, then what’s the point?
On a practical level, think of this: you have your cover of someone’s hit song out there for potential licensing and a music sup likes it. Now, the library has to tell the sup 1) we don’t actually have permission to license this track to you and 2) we can’t tell you how much the sync fee is going to be because that’s up to the Pop Superstar that wrote the song…we’ll get back to you. Not a good scenario.
An even worse case scenario is that the library goes ahead and licenses your cover to the project without permission and you all get sued by the rights holder.
Additionally, there’s no guarantee that the rights holder would want any less of a sync fee than if the track was licensed directly from them.
The best way to answer your question would be for you to contact the rights holders of the tracks involved to seek permission. They might say no right off the bat and/or tell you what their terms and conditions are.
_Michael
Hi Michael,
All of those are good reasons for getting permission ahead of time! But, I’m not seeing a reason that states permission is legally needed ahead of time. Legally, permission is granted or not granted by the issuance of a sync license by the copyright holder, correct? It is the sync license that allows the copyright holder to control how their work gets used, isn’t it?
The obligations involved for the artist are obtaining a mechanical license and issuing a master use license. The obligation for the receiver of the master use license is to request a sync license from the copyright holder. The obligation for the copyright holder is to deny or accept the sync license request. Are these the permissions needed, and none others? Or am I not getting the proper chain through this thick skull of mine? 🙂
Public performance is the copyright owner’s exclusive right.
Title 17 USC Se 106.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106
Your methodology is analogous to “shoot first ask questions later,” based on the premise that you will do the right thing and ask permission if and when someone wants to license your cover. Others might not be so honest and the rights holder has no way of knowing your original intent.
The rights holder could effectively argue that by speculatively placing an unauthorized cover into the marketplace you have taken the first steps toward infringement.
_Michael
What I’m taking away from this is that perhaps we need a new type of license to authorize a cover to be speculatively placed on the commercial licencing marketplace. But right now, no such animal exists, leaving a gray area.
Very interesting, thanks for the discussion!