Audio, Music & Licensing

Cover song

Also called: cover version

Any recorded song carries two rights. The composition, meaning melody and lyrics, belongs to the writer and their publisher. The recording belongs to whoever made it. Performing a cover creates a new recording that you own and does nothing about the composition underneath, which still belongs to someone else. Whether the upload can stay up and earn depends on the licensing arrangements between the platform and the publishers involved, so check the copyright tab in Studio after posting one before you plan a whole series. Singing over a backing track another person recorded adds a third layer of the same problem.

More in Audio, Music & Licensing

All 83 Audio, Music & Licensing terms

Trying to put this into practice? The Chewbr Knowledge Bank walks the whole upload workflow, phase by phase.