Licensing a Song to Cover for an Album

[Alex Orr]

Wondering if anyone can give me some practical advice. My band is doing a 5-6 song EP in a week. Ideally it will be all originals, but if we have enough studio time left over we wanted to cover a Dave Evans' tune called "Highway 52". It's obscure. Dave was obscure. Dave has been dead for many years. The guy who owned the label that we think the song was first released on has been dead many years (Wango, owned by the late great Ray Davis). We're an ultra tiny bluegrass band that is basically just going to upload this EP to Spotify and might be lucky to crack a total of a few hundred plays. Do we even need to worry about covering this song, and if we wanted to do it "by the book" is it mostly just a matter of filling out some forms on an ASCAP site or will it actually cost us money and time in terms of hiring a lawyer to track down any current heirs who might have legal rights and negotiating permissions rights with them? Money is something we fully expect to lose, and not to make, as a result of recording this thing. What's the worst that can happen? We have to drop the song from a digital-only release and give them, at most, a few hundredths of a penny if it gets any spins at all? I'm kind've of the mindset of just putting the song on the album and assuming no one is going to care.

[Mandobar]

Google is your friend

https://support.cdbaby.com/hc/en-us/...United-States-

https://help.songtrust.com/knowledge...e-a-cover-song


I’d suggest you “do it by the book” because an intellectual property law violation could cost you, even some time down the road, and inevitably it will be when you can least afford it.

[Don Grieser]

You would normally use the Harry Fox Agency to get a mechanical license. Unfortunately, Highway 52 by Dave Evans isn't registered with them. But a simple search brought up this page with a link for licensing. https://secondhandsongs.com/work/225907/all

[MikeEdgerton]

Second hand songs looks like a broker of some sort that will assist you. The disclaimer on the bottom of their contact page says:

"Please note that we are in no way affiliated with any of the copyright holders of this song, but work with our clients as a third-party licensing agent to seek out appropriate parties and negotiate favorable terms within your budget and timeframe."

The publisher is listed as NEW ROME MUSIC BMI. That might be a place to start. Google brings up this as their address (assuming they are still there):

NEW ROME MUSIC
3970 S HIGH ST
COLUMBUS, OH 43207-4014

[stevo58]

An irrelevant story:

Back in the 70s, some friends of mine were recording an LP to sell at their gigs. This was back when it cost a small fortune to record, and another to press a few hundred copies of vinyl.

They wanted to do a Hoyt Axton song. They called the number for licensing. A little boy answered the phone, then called his father to the phone.

Hoyt listened to their request, asked a couple of questions, said he was likely to earn maybe ten bucks from it, so go ahead and don’t worry about the licensing.

I can’t imagine that happening today. A few years ago, some other friends recorded “Southern Cross” and made a video, and paid $600 licensing so they could put it on YouTube.

[HogTime]

Over 10 years ago I released my own CD of mostly original songs. Did have 3 covers. Used Harry Fox to prepay the about 9 cents per CD per song for 400 CDs I estimated I would sell/giveaway. Plus a small processing fee to Harry Fox. I do have some of those songs on Spotify, etc., but they pay any royalties "per play".

Good luck with your EP!

[jesserules]

Wondering if anyone can give me some practical advice. My band is doing a 5-6 song EP in a week. Ideally it will be all originals, but if we have enough studio time left over we wanted to cover a Dave Evans' tune called "Highway 52". It's obscure. Dave was obscure. Dave has been dead for many years. The guy who owned the label that we think the song was first released on has been dead many years (Wango, owned by the late great Ray Davis). We're an ultra tiny bluegrass band that is basically just going to upload this EP to Spotify and might be lucky to crack a total of a few hundred plays. Do we even need to worry about covering this song, and if we wanted to do it "by the book" is it mostly just a matter of filling out some forms on an ASCAP site or will it actually cost us money and time in terms of hiring a lawyer to track down any current heirs who might have legal rights and negotiating permissions rights with them? Money is something we fully expect to lose, and not to make, as a result of recording this thing. What's the worst that can happen? We have to drop the song from a digital-only release and give them, at most, a few hundredths of a penny if it gets any spins at all? I'm kind've of the mindset of just putting the song on the album and assuming no one is going to care.

Harry Fox Agency.

Long version: https://www.harryfox.com/license-music

Short version: 9.1 cents per unit sold https://www.harryfox.com/content/physical.pdf

[MikeEdgerton]

Harry Fox Agency.

Long version: https://www.harryfox.com/license-music

Short version: 9.1 cents per unit sold https://www.harryfox.com/content/physical.pdf

Except Harry Fox doesn't have the song listed.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...=1#post1892674

[Chris Fannin]

I just released my own album of 11 originals yesterday. How are you planning on sending the EP to Spotify? I used Distrokid and there's a lot of info to fill out when uploading your album.

From Distrokid website:

Cover songs are okay!
A "cover song" is a song that you performed & recorded yourself, but the music was written by someone else. For example, when your band plays "Smooth Criminal" (written by Michael Jackson). This is totally okay—DistroKid makes it easy and legal to sell cover songs.

Sampling is probably not okay
Sampling is when you use the actual recording of another artist's performance. For example, if you use the 1971 recording of Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks" as your drum track. That's generally not allowed, unless you have permission from the original artist.

Remixes are probably not okay
A remix of another artist's music is not the same thing as a cover. A cover is if you played the song yourself. On the other hand, a remix requires the permission of the original artist and is a totally different thing.

DistroKid will secure a license on your behalf via third-party vendor

DistroKid compulsory mechanical licenses are secured by the Harry Fox Agency ("HFA"). Per U.S. copyright law, cover song licenses only provide legal coverage if the original song has already been released in the US, and the main elements of the original song (original lyrics, melody and title) remain fundamentally unaltered within the new sound recording. Genre changes and embellishments are totally okay and encouraged. Language changes are probably not okay. If you're not sure if your cover is allowed or not, please see the Harry Fox Agency's FAQ (here) and make sure to only upload covers that can be covered by compulsory mechanical licenses. These rules are a copyright thing, not a DistroKid thing (or HFA thing) and affect all distributors and licensors. Releases containing cover songs will not be available for sale in India, Pakistan, Mexico, or Canada.

Automated payments to songwriters

DistroKid will automatically deduct the legally-mandated fee of 9.1¢ per song sold in the U.S. from your earnings and send it to HFA, who sends it to the original songwriter. You'll get 100% of the rest.

Fee
DistroKid charges a fee of $1 per month (paid annually, so $12 billed to your cc) to manage this cover song for you. We will:
Obtain license(s)
Pay the original songwriter(s) every month
Do the things described here and here

[MikeEdgerton]

Again, Harry Fox doesn't have the song listed. If you buy the mechanical license from Harry Fox you pay one time.

[RobP]

We did 2 covers on my bands recent CD. I used Easysong to license the covers. It was very easy, and not very expensive.

[dhergert]

We had 9 covers in our last album (dual-CD, 2019); the rest of the songs on this album were in the public domain. We used Easy Song Licensing to pay for covers and certify the whole album. It took a little bit of song research, a little bit of computer savvy, and about $1 per album that we produced (2K). The cost included a certification graphic which was printed on each album, and it also covered digital rights through various sources. The songs in our previous 3 albums were all in the public domain.

[jesserules]

Except Harry Fox doesn't have the song listed.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...=1#post1892674

Harry Fox is the place to go for licensing. Anybody else on line is just offering a workaround, which they will charge for in addition to whatever you end up paying the rights holder. As the company linked to says,

Please note that we are in no way affiliated with any of the copyright holders of this song, but work with our clients as a third-party licensing agent to seek out appropriate parties and negotiate favorable terms within your budget and timeframe.

[dhergert]

In the case of the OP, who is producing demo-size album with only one cover song, going direct to the HF agency might well be the best direction.

Bigger projects might justify having a broker do the work, as we did... Our 2-CD/27-song album, with 9 cover songs, involved a lot of background production work aside from just the studio time. Our publisher's production advisor recommended the broker agency that we used, and in fact had a direct communication line with them to help facilitate their side of the production work. And in our case, it was also the first album that we had ever needed to worry about cover costs; we had specifically restricted all the rest of our 13-14 song albums to documented public domain music. So for this much more complicated album, this was an easy way to take care of cover costs

... I'm kind've of the mindset of just putting the song on the album and assuming no one is going to care.

I can't recommend this... IF you're going to be presenting the album to anyone who is at all knowledgeable in the music industry, having an un-compensated cover song in it will raise questions that will be hard to answer.

In our case, this wasn't even a question that came up -- and it's kind of funny... Ours is a Gospel album, and it would be at least a little hypocritical to steal songs to publish in it.

[MikeEdgerton]

Harry Fox is the place to go for licensing. Anybody else on line is just offering a workaround, which they will charge for in addition to whatever you end up paying the rights holder. As the company linked to says,

Please note that we are in no way affiliated with any of the copyright holders of this song, but work with our clients as a third-party licensing agent to seek out appropriate parties and negotiate favorable terms within your budget and timeframe.

I know this is going to come as a surprise but I quoted that same text near the top of this thread and again, Harry Fox doesn't have this song listed for a license. The link would have shown you that.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...=1#post1892676

For anyone else that might think that the Harry Fox agency is a new topic here on the cafe, here are some past threads going back years.

[jaycat]

Do you have to buy a license for a song you are covering if you're offering your version as a free download?

[dhergert]

Yes, although the digital licensing is often taken care of automatically by the service companies, ie: YouTube, etc... So for example if you're wanting to publish on YouTube and if the song you're covering meets their requirements -- ie: if they have a digital license agreement with the owner or agent of the song -- you can publish it there. If they don't have such an agreement and/or if they receive complaints about it, they'll most likely eventually yank your song offline.

In my experience with our newest album, we paid a different fee for each cover song, and it was based on the number of albums we published. We published 2K albums and it came out to about $1 per album (for 9 cover songs). While all of our albums were also published online as a service that we paid the publisher for, I am not aware of how the digital licensing was handled, except that we did once, after having our albums online for about 10 years, receive an unexpected check for $100.

(If it's of any interest to verify experience, here is our band's "Topic" in YouTube: Sweet Tidings Gospel Jam. Mods, feel free to yank this paragraph if I've broken any rules with this; didn't mean to.)

[jesserules]

I know this is going to come as a surprise but I quoted that same text near the top of this thread and again, Harry Fox doesn't have this song listed for a license. The link would have shown you that.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...=1#post1892676

For anyone else that might think that the Harry Fox agency is a new topic here on the cafe, here are some past threads going back years.

Yeah, I basically stopped reading after the "Harry Fox doesn't have the song listed" bit, which came across as "so don't even bother". You didn't quote the useful/informative part, as I did. Maybe you should have. Do you have anything useful to add to the discussion?

[MikeEdgerton]

Yeah, I basically stopped reading after the "Harry Fox doesn't have the song listed" bit, which came across as "so don't even bother". You didn't quote the useful/informative part, as I did. Maybe you should have. Do you have anything useful to add to the discussion?

Sure, read post number 4. Reading is important but so is comprehension. Enjoy your day.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...=1#post1892676

[elmicko]

If you publish your CD through CD Baby for digital download and online distribution to streaming services, CD Baby will take care of the licensing for you. When I recorded my last CD Watauga Point I included two cover songs that my Dad used to play for me when I was a kid. I just filled out the information for those tracks when I uploaded them to CD Baby and they took care of the rest. And I get a few paychecks from them during the year for online plays and YouTube views. It really can't get much easier than that.

[Jeff Mando]

An irrelevant story:

Back in the 70s, some friends of mine were recording an LP to sell at their gigs. This was back when it cost a small fortune to record, and another to press a few hundred copies of vinyl.

They wanted to do a Hoyt Axton song. They called the number for licensing. A little boy answered the phone, then called his father to the phone.

Hoyt listened to their request, asked a couple of questions, said he was likely to earn maybe ten bucks from it, so go ahead and don’t worry about the licensing.

I can’t imagine that happening today. A few years ago, some other friends recorded “Southern Cross” and made a video, and paid $600 licensing so they could put it on YouTube.

We had a similar experience years ago recording a local woman's song, a bit more annoying. She gave us permission, and when the record album was pressed we gave her some copies. She noticed we gave her credit as a songwriter, but left off her publishing company info and raised a fuss about it. She was a friend and nice older lady, but repressing the album was out of the question. To appease her (somewhat) we decided to add a sticker on the front cellophane that mentioned "this album features such and such song by so and so" and included her publishing info. That calmed her for a moment. Then she said "where is my royalty check?" I explained royalties (at that time) get paid every six months. She was a BMI member, so I told her BMI would send her a check. Well....six months to the day, she calls and says I didn't get my BMI check yet. She was irate and was planning to fly to NYC to threaten them into paying her until I explained we only pressed 1200 of them and had sold very few, so far -- I explained the current royalty rate was only 5 cents, so it wouldn't be a very large amount owed. She whips out a pocket calculator and says, "let's see, 1200 times 5 cents -- you owe me $60 bucks." I wrote her a check (even though that's not how it works) and that seemed to make her very happy. Not a nightmare, just a slight nuisance -- I would say a "senior moment" but now I'm a senior and I might find that offensive. And, it was more a case of pride than delusions of grandeur, IMHO. And, we got to record a good song!

Years later, she was having a retrospective event highlighting her career at a popular night spot that features live music. She called me and told me about it and explained who would be there performing, before I could say I would be glad to perform -- SHE SAYS "I'd like for you to be there -- TO HELP PARK CARS!!!" Trouble was, she was serious. I guess she didn't consider us "colleagues" in the normal sense.

Again, this is old info that probably doesn't apply, but I can imagine you want to get something in writing, just in case.

[Don Grieser]

Mechanical licenses are for the number of CDs/LPs/Cassettes manufactured, not sold. It is paid up front and doesn't go through BMI/ASCAP. BMI/ASCAP collect for performance royalties, a whole different thing. Harry Fox, other mechanical license companies, or the writer/publishing company (if they don't contract with a mechanical license company) handle the licenses for manufacturing CDs.

A long time ago, a band I was in covered a Dylan song (maybe 1000 CDs) and couldn't get a response from his publishing company on a license because it was only $50 or $60. I finally wrote one up (using one from Harry Fox as a template), wrote a check and a letter, and said we were considering it a done deal and getting the CDs made. They sent their proper contract eventually.

[MikeEdgerton]

Dave Evan's record label might also be a place to start looking for a contact. Their contact page is here.

https://rebelrecords.com/catalog-art...ts/dave-evans/

[tuhker]

As others have said, your digital distributor will take care of that. That is one of my favorite songs to sing cause he was a local where I grew up right on Rt 52 at the border of Hanging Rock and Ironton both mentioned in the song.

[jaycat]

If you publish your CD through CD Baby for digital download and online distribution to streaming services, CD Baby will take care of the licensing for you.

Are you relinquishing some publishing rights in that event?