If you’re an independent artist planning to release a cover song, you’ve probably asked yourself whether it costs more to distribute than an original track. It’s a fair question — covers involve an extra legal layer that originals don’t: mechanical licensing. But does that translate into higher fees, slower approval, or lower royalties? Let’s break it down.
The Legal Difference: Mechanical Licensing
When you release an original song, you own the composition and the recording, so there’s no third-party permission required. When you release a cover, you’re recording someone else’s composition, which means you legally need a mechanical license before it can go to streaming platforms. This isn’t optional — it’s a copyright requirement.
Historically, getting that license meant extra paperwork, extra time, and often an extra fee on top of your distribution cost. This is where a lot of artists assume covers will always cost more to release than originals.
Where Globex Music Levels the Playing Field
With Globex Music, that licensing step is built directly into the release process. When you upload a cover song, the mechanical license is handled automatically as part of your $1 release fee — there’s no separate licensing charge, no manual application, and no waiting on a third-party rights organization to respond. You pay the same low starting price whether you’re releasing an original single or a cover.
That’s a meaningful difference compared to how some other distributors handle it. TuneCore, for example, charges a base annual fee plus additional per-cover licensing fees on top, and adds a 20% commission specifically on social platform monetization. CD Baby charges $9.95 per single and takes a 9% royalty commission forever, on every track, cover or not. DistroKid runs $44.99 a year just to keep your catalog live, regardless of how many covers or originals you upload. Globex Music’s $1-per-release pricing applies across the board, with no annual fee attached.
Does Moderation Take Longer for Covers?
It’s a reasonable worry — surely a track that requires licensing takes longer to review than one that doesn’t? In practice, because the licensing is automated on the back end, moderation times for covers stay just as fast as they are for original releases. You’re not stuck in a separate, slower queue waiting on a human to manually verify a mechanical license.
What About Royalties?
Once your cover song is live across 150+ platforms, royalty payouts work the same way they do for original music. Globex Music pays out starting from as little as $10 USD, so you’re not stuck waiting for royalties to pile up into some inflated minimum threshold before you can actually access your earnings. Whether the streams are coming from a cover or an original, the payout process and minimum are identical.
Catalog Stability Either Way
One more thing worth mentioning: your cover songs don’t get treated as «temporary» or lower-priority content just because they required licensing. Once distributed, they stay live with the same permanent catalog stability as your original releases — no annual renewal fee to worry about, no risk of tracks disappearing because a subscription lapsed.
The Bottom Line
So, do distribution costs differ between covers and originals? With most services, yes — covers often come with extra fees, extra steps, or extra commissions. With Globex Music, the answer is no. Both cost $1 to release, both move through moderation quickly, and both qualify for payouts starting at $10. The only real difference is that automatic mechanical licensing is quietly working in the background for your cover songs, so you can focus on the music instead of the paperwork.
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