To legally cover a song in the United States, you need a mechanical license from the publisher of the original composition for any audio release, and a separately negotiated synchronization license on top of that if your cover will appear with video. For audio-only covers, federal law guarantees you the mechanical license at a fixed statutory rate once the song has been commercially released — the publisher cannot refuse. For video, there is no such guarantee, and the publisher can say no.
What you’re licensing is the underlying composition (the melody and lyrics), not the original artist’s recording. Because you’re making your own new recording from scratch, the master recording is irrelevant. The license comes from whoever controls the publishing rights.
Which License You Need
The right license depends entirely on how you plan to release the cover.
Audio-Only Releases
Downloads, CDs, vinyl, and interactive streaming on services like Spotify or Apple Music all require a mechanical license. This license grants you the right to reproduce and distribute the composition in a new recording. Under Section 115 of the Copyright Act, it’s a compulsory license: as long as the song has been previously released with the copyright owner’s permission and you follow the required procedures, the publisher must grant it.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 115 – Scope of Exclusive Rights in Nondramatic Musical Works: Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords
The trigger is distribution, not recording. You can record a cover at home all you want. The licensing obligation arrives the moment you make it available to the public.
Video Covers
The moment your cover is paired with any visual element — a YouTube video, a TikTok clip, an Instagram reel, a film scene — you also need a synchronization license. A sync license covers combining a composition with moving images, and it operates under entirely different rules. There is no compulsory provision. The publisher can refuse, and there is no government-set rate.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 115 – Scope of Exclusive Rights in Nondramatic Musical Works: Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords
Live Performances
If you’re playing covers at a bar, restaurant, or concert hall, the licensing burden is on the venue, not you. Businesses that host live music pay annual blanket fees to performing rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.2SESAC. Who Is Responsible for Paying Music Licensing Fees As a performer at a properly licensed venue, you don’t need to get your own license.
Public Domain Songs
Songs old enough to have entered the public domain need no license at all. As of January 1, 2026, compositions published in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain in the United States and free for anyone to record, perform, or adapt.3Duke University School of Law. Public Domain Day 2026 The cutoff advances by one year each January. One caution: a specific recording of a public domain composition may still be under its own copyright. The melody and lyrics of a 1928 song are free to use; a 1928 recording of it may not be.
Unreleased Songs
The compulsory mechanical license is only available for compositions that have already been commercially released with the copyright owner’s permission.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 115 – Scope of Exclusive Rights in Nondramatic Musical Works: Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords If you want to be the first to record someone’s unreleased song, you have to negotiate directly with the publisher.
How to Get a Mechanical License
Before you can license anything, you need three pieces of information: the official song title, the songwriter names, and the music publisher who controls the composition. The free online databases maintained by ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC will get you most of the way there.
From there, you have several practical routes:
- Most independent artists use their digital distributor. Services like DistroKid and TuneCore will handle mechanical licensing for a fee when you upload a cover, and this is typically the simplest path.
- For physical formats like CDs and vinyl, the Harry Fox Agency (HFA) represents many publishers and can issue a license directly.4ASCAP. ASCAP Music Licensing FAQs – Section: Mechanical Rights
- You can also file a Notice of Intention directly with the copyright owner to invoke the compulsory license under federal law.
If you search the Copyright Office’s public records and cannot identify the copyright owner or find a valid address, you can file your Notice of Intention with the Copyright Office instead. The filing fee is $75 for the first title, with additional titles at reduced rates.5U.S. Copyright Office. Licensing Fees The Office also accepts returned notices: if you mailed a Notice of Intention to the publisher’s last known address and it came back undeliverable, you can refile with the Office along with a brief statement explaining what happened.6Copyright.gov. Circular 73 Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords
What You’ll Pay
The Copyright Royalty Board sets the royalty rate. For 2026, the rate for physical phonorecords and permanent downloads is the greater of 13.1 cents per track or 2.52 cents per minute of playing time (or fraction thereof).7Federal Register. Cost of Living Adjustment to Royalty Rates and Terms for Making and Distributing Phonorecords For songs under five minutes, the per-track rate applies. For longer songs, the per-minute calculation kicks in and you pay whichever is higher. These rates adjust annually for inflation.
Sync Licenses and the YouTube Reality
Because sync licenses are fully negotiated, getting one for a small independent video project can be time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes impossible if the publisher doesn’t respond.
In practice, most independent artists uploading cover videos to YouTube do not obtain a formal sync license first. YouTube’s Content ID system acts as a workaround. When you upload a cover, Content ID typically detects the composition and places a copyright claim on the video on behalf of the publisher. Rather than removing the video, the system often lets it stay up while routing advertising revenue to the publisher.8YouTube Help – Google Help. Monetizing Eligible Cover Videos If you’re in the YouTube Partner Program, you may be eligible to share a portion of that ad revenue on a pro rata basis once the publisher claims the video.
This is not a license in the legal sense. It’s a platform-specific arrangement that could change, and the publisher retains the right to request a takedown instead. Platforms beyond YouTube generally have no equivalent system. Posting a cover video to TikTok, Instagram, or your own website without a sync license still carries legal risk, even when enforcement is inconsistent.
What You Can and Can’t Change
A mechanical license gives you real creative latitude. You can change the key, tempo, instrumentation, genre, and overall feel. Recording a pop hit as a jazz arrangement, slowing a dance track into a ballad, or performing a guitar song on piano is all permitted without additional authorization.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 115 – Scope of Exclusive Rights in Nondramatic Musical Works: Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords
The line you cannot cross is altering the basic melody or the fundamental character of the work. Rewriting lyrics, changing melodic structure, or transforming the song so substantially that it becomes a new composition creates what copyright law calls a derivative work. That requires separate, negotiated permission from the publisher. The compulsory license doesn’t cover it. If you’re doing more than reinterpreting, you’re in derivative work territory.
What Happens If You Skip the License
Distributing a cover without the required license is copyright infringement, and the consequences scale from annoying to financially devastating.
The most common first consequence is a DMCA takedown. The copyright holder sends a notice to the platform, which removes your content and issues a strike against your account. Most platforms, including YouTube, operate on a three-strike system. Three takedowns and the platform terminates your account entirely, meaning you lose your channel, your subscriber base, and every video you’ve uploaded.
If a copyright holder takes you to court, statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per song infringed, as the court considers appropriate.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits If the court finds the infringement was willful, damages can reach $150,000 per work. If you genuinely had no reason to know your use was infringing, the floor drops to $200 per work. Given that a mechanical license costs roughly 13 cents per copy, the math strongly favors getting licensed.
One misconception worth flagging: performing a cover is almost never fair use. A cover reproduces the entire composition for the same purpose as the original, and courts applying the four-factor test consistently find that covers lack the transformative purpose required. The compulsory mechanical license exists precisely because Congress recognized covers wouldn’t qualify as fair use but still wanted to guarantee artists a path to record new versions.
Quick-Reference Checklist
- Audio-only cover (download, CD, vinyl, streaming): mechanical license through your distributor, HFA, or a compulsory license filing. Pay the statutory rate per copy.
- Video cover (YouTube, TikTok, film): mechanical license and sync license. On YouTube, Content ID may handle it practically; other platforms have no equivalent safety net.
- Live performance: the venue handles it through its PRO blanket licenses. No action required from you.
- Public domain song (published 1930 or earlier): no license needed.
- Unreleased song never commercially distributed: no compulsory license available. Negotiate directly with the copyright owner.
- Significant changes to melody or lyrics: a standard mechanical license doesn’t cover this. You need separate permission from the publisher to create a derivative work.