Are the royalties split between the original composer and the cover band? I’m talking about songs like “Killing me softly with his song”, that was originally recorded by Lori Lieberman, re recorded by Roberta Flack and by The Fugees.
In: 60
For music, there are compulsory licenses. That means once a song is released publicly, anybody is allowed to cover the song as long as they pay the royalties. The royalty rates are set by the government.
If you record a cover, and use a service like distrokid, you tell them who originally wrote the song. They handle everything else, they take a cut of the royalties, send it to the correct person. Doesn’t matter if you sell 1 copy or a million.
Now YouTube is a little different. Setting music to video requires a sync license, and there are no compulsory licenses for that. YouTube has agreements with many record companies, so they may be able to get you a license. Or maybe not.
Note that sampling is something completely different, and you’ll need to negotiate for each sample you use.
Latest Answers