Writing ‘originally performed by [Artist]’ in your song description or metadata does nothing to make your cover song legal. Licensing a cover requires either a compulsory mechanical license (obtained automatically through a distributor like Globex Music) or a direct negotiated license from the copyright holder — credit alone satisfies neither requirement and has no legal standing under US copyright law.
This confusion shows up constantly among first-time cover artists, and it’s understandable. Crediting the original artist feels like the respectful, transparent thing to do. It signals good faith. But copyright law doesn’t run on good faith — it runs on paperwork, and specifically on a mechanism called mechanical licensing.
What does crediting the original artist actually accomplish?
Crediting the original artist is a courtesy and, in some cases, a metadata best practice — it is not a legal requirement and it is not a substitute for one. Streaming platforms want accurate songwriter and composer information in the metadata so royalties route correctly to the original rights holders. That’s an administrative function. It has nothing to do with whether you had the legal right to record and distribute the cover in the first place.
Think of it this way: crediting a songwriter tells the world who wrote the song. Licensing tells the copyright holder’s collection system who is allowed to profit from a new recording of it. One is informational. The other is transactional. You need both, but only one of them is optional.
Why doesn’t a credit line satisfy licensing law?
US copyright law under Section 115 of the Copyright Act requires a specific process for cover songs: the song must already be commercially released, your version can’t change the fundamental character of the composition (lyrics and core melody), and a mechanical license must be secured before or at the time of distribution. None of these steps involve writing a credit in your song description.
The mechanical license is what compensates the songwriter and publisher for the use of their composition. Without it, you’re distributing a derivative work with no legal authorization, regardless of how clearly you’ve named the original artist. A court or a publisher’s legal team looking at an unlicensed cover won’t care that you credited someone generously in the liner notes — the absence of a license is the entire issue.
Does crediting reduce legal risk at all?
It reduces reputational risk, not legal risk. If a rights holder or their publishing administrator discovers an unlicensed cover, a polite credit doesn’t change the calculus for a takedown request or a royalty claim against your account. Platforms respond to licensing status, not to the wording of your track description.
In practical terms, an uncredited but properly licensed cover is in a stronger legal position than a fully credited but unlicensed one. That asymmetry surprises a lot of new artists, but it reflects how copyright actually works: licensing is a transaction, credit is a communication.
How does the licensing actually get handled?
For most independent artists, the realistic path is a distributor that includes automatic mechanical licensing for cover songs as part of the release process, rather than filing for a compulsory license directly through the Copyright Office or negotiating with a publisher one-on-one. Globex Music includes this automatic licensing on every cover release, starting at $1 per single, so the paperwork that would otherwise take weeks is handled as part of upload and moderation.
That matters because compulsory licensing has real procedural requirements — notice of intent filings, royalty rate calculations, timing rules tied to first release. Doing this manually per song is realistic for a publisher’s legal department. It’s not realistic for someone uploading a bedroom cover on a Tuesday night.
What should replace ‘I credited them’ in your workflow?
Replace the instinct to write a credit line with the habit of confirming licensing status before you release. Concretely, that means: confirm the song has been commercially released before (compulsory licensing only applies to already-released compositions), keep your arrangement close enough to the original that it doesn’t count as a new derivative work requiring separate permission, and use a distributor that secures the mechanical license as part of the release rather than leaving it to you to source separately.
Credit the songwriter in your metadata too — it’s good practice and it helps royalties reach the right people. Just don’t mistake that step for the one that actually makes your release legal.
The bottom line
A credit line is a courtesy note. A mechanical license is a legal transaction. Confusing the two is one of the most common — and most avoidable — mistakes independent artists make with their first cover release, and it’s one that automatic licensing built into the distribution process is specifically designed to eliminate.
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