Do I Owe Royalties to the Original Artist or the Songwriter?

When you release a cover song, the royalties tied to your license go to the songwriter and their publisher, not the artist who made the original recording famous. This is one of the most consistently misunderstood points in cover song licensing, and it matters because it determines who gets paid, who can block your release, and why an artist’s estate has no say over whether you can record their signature hit.

The confusion is understandable. Culturally, we associate a song with the person who performed it. Legally, ownership splits into two separate assets, and only one of them is relevant to a cover recording.

What’s the difference between the songwriter and the original artist?

The songwriter (and their music publisher) owns the composition — the underlying melody, lyrics, and chord structure. The original artist typically owns or controls the master recording — the specific captured performance, with its particular arrangement, vocal take, and production. A cover song replaces the master entirely with your own recording, but it reuses the composition, which is why only the composition owner is owed anything.

Consider «Hallelujah.» Leonard Cohen wrote it, so his estate and publisher are owed mechanical royalties on every cover, whether it’s Jeff Buckley’s version, a wedding singer’s version, or yours. Jeff Buckley’s estate is owed nothing from your cover, because you didn’t use his recording — you made a new one.

So who exactly gets my mechanical royalty payment?

Your mechanical royalty flows to the songwriter’s publisher (or directly to the songwriter if they’re self-published), based on the composition’s registered ownership split. If a song has three credited writers, the royalty is typically divided according to their registered percentage shares, regardless of who performed the original recording. This is also why a song can have dozens of legitimate covers generating royalties simultaneously — each one is a separate license against the same composition, paid to the same songwriter, independent of any original performer.

Does the original performing artist ever get a cut?

Not from your mechanical license, and not unless they’re also a credited songwriter on the track. Many hit songs are performed by artists who didn’t write them — a huge share of pop, country, and R&B catalog was written by outside songwriters and recorded by artists who had no writing credit at all. In those cases, a cover pays the actual writer, and the famous performer sees nothing from your release. This is a legal fact worth stating plainly: performing a song does not create ownership of it.

Why does this distinction actually matter for artists releasing covers?

It matters because it tells you exactly who can stop your release and who can’t. A songwriter or publisher can, in theory, decline certain uses depending on rights territory and format. A performing artist who didn’t write the song has no legal standing to object to your cover at all — they simply don’t hold the relevant right. Knowing this saves you from a common but pointless worry: reaching out to an artist’s team for «permission» to cover their song when the actual gatekeeper is a publishing entity you’ve never heard of.

How does this play out with a compulsory mechanical license?

In the US, once a songwriter has authorized one commercial recording of their composition, subsequent artists are generally entitled to record and distribute their own version under a compulsory mechanical license, provided the royalty is paid and the lyrics and melody aren’t fundamentally altered. That royalty obligation runs to the composition owner — the songwriter and publisher — not to whoever recorded the version you personally grew up hearing. This is the legal mechanism that makes cover culture possible at scale: it removes the need for individual negotiation with the songwriter for standard audio releases, while still ensuring they get paid every time.

What this looks like in practice on Globex Music

Globex Music handles this distinction automatically. When you upload a cover, mechanical licensing to the songwriter is included in your release — you’re not required to track down publishers, calculate splits, or figure out which of three credited writers gets what percentage. A single release starts at $1, moderation is typically fast, and royalty payouts begin from $10 USD once your cover starts generating streams. Compare that to TuneCore, which charges a $24.99/year base fee plus separate per-cover licensing fees on top, or CD Baby, which charges $9.95 per single and then takes a 9% royalty commission on that release forever. Globex’s flat $1 per release, with no annual fee and no ongoing per-track commission, removes both the licensing research and the recurring cost from the equation.

The bottom line

You owe royalties to whoever wrote the song, not whoever made it famous. That single fact resolves most of the confusion artists have about cover licensing — it explains why estates of non-writing performers can’t block your release, why publishing splits matter more than chart history, and why a proper distributor’s job is to route your mechanical royalty to the correct composition owner every time, automatically, without you needing to become a copyright researcher first.