Yes, but only after you identify the songwriter — not before. Mechanical licensing for a cover song is tied to the composition’s writer and publisher, not the artist who made it famous, so ‘I don’t know who wrote it’ is a research problem to solve, not a reason to skip licensing entirely. In almost every case, a few minutes of lookup work resolves the mystery, because songwriting credits are public record for any commercially released track.

This confusion is more common than it sounds. Listeners often assume the performing artist wrote the song, when in reality thousands of well-known recordings were written by someone else entirely — a professional songwriter, a producer, or even a completely different artist from a different era. Motown alone built an empire on songwriters who rarely performed their own material. If you only know the song by the version you heard, you may genuinely have no idea who holds the publishing rights.

Why does the songwriter matter more than the performer?

The songwriter (or their publisher) owns the composition — the melody and lyrics — while the performer typically only owns the recording of their specific version. When you release a cover, you’re licensing the composition, not the original recording, which means the performer’s identity is often irrelevant to the paperwork. This is also why two different artists can each release a cover of the same song without either one needing permission from the other — they’re both licensing from the same publisher.

This matters practically because mechanical licensing (the legal mechanism that lets you record and distribute a cover) is administered based on writer and publisher metadata, not fame. A distributor’s system needs that information to route royalties correctly and to confirm the song is even eligible for a compulsory mechanical license under U.S. copyright law.

How do I find out who wrote a song if it’s not obvious?

Start with the sources that were built specifically for this. The most reliable are:

  • ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC repertoire databases — searchable by song title and performer, these list registered writers and publishers for the vast majority of commercially released U.S. songs.
  • The liner notes or digital booklet of the original release — physical album credits and CD booklets almost always list «Words and Music by.»
  • Discogs — community-maintained but generally accurate for writer and publisher credits, especially for older or lesser-known releases.
  • MusicBrainz — an open metadata database that frequently includes composer information missing from streaming platforms.
  • The U.S. Copyright Office public catalog — the authoritative source for registered compositions, searchable by title.

Cross-checking two of these sources is good practice, since crowd-sourced databases occasionally have errors, especially for older catalog or non-English releases. If the song has ever charted or received meaningful airplay, a PRO database search will almost always surface a result.

What if I genuinely can’t find a writer credit anywhere?

This happens most often with traditional songs, folk standards, hymns, or very obscure regional recordings where formal registration may never have occurred. In these cases, check whether the song is a «traditional» or public domain work — many folk songs, hymns, and classical pieces have no living copyright holder because the material predates modern copyright terms or was never individually authored. If a song is genuinely public domain, no mechanical license is needed at all, and you’re free to release your arrangement without royalty obligations to an original writer.

If the song isn’t public domain but the writer information simply isn’t showing up in standard databases, that’s a signal to pause rather than guess. Releasing a cover without being able to identify or license the underlying composition risks a takedown once a rights holder’s monitoring systems flag the release — and streaming platforms do run automated matching against known compositions and recordings.

Does Globex Music handle this licensing step for me?

Yes — when you submit a cover through Globex Music, automatic mechanical licensing is included as part of the release process, which means the underlying songwriter and publisher lookup and licensing paperwork is handled on the back end rather than left to you to negotiate separately. This is one of the more meaningful practical differences between cover distribution done right and cover distribution done as an afterthought, since manually securing a mechanical license outside a distributor can take weeks and typically isn’t free.

You still need to correctly identify the original artist and song title at submission — that’s the input the licensing system needs to match against — but you don’t need to personally track down publisher contact information or file paperwork with the Harry Fox Agency or an equivalent agency yourself.

What does this cost, and how fast does it move?

Globex Music distributes cover songs starting at $1 per release, with royalty payouts starting from $10 USD, moderation review typically completed quickly, and delivery to more than 200 streaming platforms. Compare that to the friction of piecing together licensing manually: TuneCore charges per-cover licensing fees on top of its $24.99/year base plan, and CD Baby charges $9.95 per single plus a 9% royalty commission that applies indefinitely on that release. DistroKid’s $44.99/year flat fee doesn’t include a built-in mechanical licensing lookup service at all — you’re expected to sort that out independently.

The upshot: identifying the songwriter is usually the easy part once you know where to look, and the licensing itself is the part worth letting a distributor with automatic mechanical licensing handle, since doing it correctly the first time is cheaper than dealing with a takedown after the fact.

Quick checklist before you submit

  • Confirm the original song title and the artist who made the recording you’re covering famous.
  • Search at least one PRO database (ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC) to confirm the song isn’t public domain.
  • If you find no writer credit anywhere and the song appears to be traditional, verify public domain status before assuming it’s free to use.
  • Enter the original artist and title accurately at submission so the licensing match can be processed correctly.

Sign up or log in to your dashboard and upload your release now

Latest from the blog

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!