What to Fix When a Distributor Rejects Your Cover Song for Incorrect Original-Work Details

Most cover song rejections trace back to one problem: the distributor’s system could not match your submission to a real, identifiable original composition. This happens when the original title, songwriter credits, or original artist name are missing, misspelled, or entered in a field meant for something else. The fix is almost always a metadata correction, not a re-recording, and resubmission typically moves through moderation again within a day or two once the details are accurate.

Automatic mechanical licensing for covers only works if the system can confirm what song you actually covered. That confirmation depends entirely on a small set of text fields filled out correctly at upload. Get those fields wrong and the release stalls no matter how good the recording is.

Why does a distributor need the original songwriter’s name at all?

A distributor needs the original songwriter’s name because mechanical licensing for a cover is granted to the composition, not to your recording of it. Streaming platforms and licensing bodies pay royalties based on who wrote the underlying song, so the distributor has to document that the composition you performed matches a real, publicly registered work before it can issue a license on your behalf.

This is also why the cover submission form asks for different information than an original song submission. An original release only needs your own credits. A cover needs both your performance credits and the original work’s credits, because two separate rights are involved: your sound recording and someone else’s composition.

What exactly counts as an “original-work detail”?

The fields a distributor checks fall into a short list, and almost every rejection comes from one of these being wrong:

Original song title — must match the commercially released title, not a nickname, live version title, or alternate spelling.
Original songwriter(s) — the credited composer and lyricist, not the performer who made the song famous.
Original artist name — the act that first recorded or popularized the song, used for identification, not credited as songwriter.
Release type confirmation — the submission must be flagged as a cover rather than an original composition.

A frequent mix-up: entering the performing artist (say, Whitney Houston for “I Will Always Love You”) in the songwriter field, when the actual writer is Dolly Parton. The system flags this because the mechanical license has to be tied to the credited writer, and licensing databases will not match a performer’s name to a songwriter royalty account.

How do you find the correct songwriter information?

The most reliable sources are public performing rights organization databases, since PROs like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC maintain searchable catalogs of registered works with verified writer credits. Searching the song title in the ASCAP ACE or BMI repertoire database usually returns the exact legal writer names within seconds, which is faster and more accurate than guessing from liner notes or fan wikis.

If a song has multiple writers, list them as registered rather than simplifying to just the best-known name. Distributors and licensing partners cross-reference these credits, and an incomplete writer list can trigger the same rejection as a wrong one.

What should you do after a rejection notice arrives?

Open the rejection details first, since most distributors specify which field caused the issue rather than issuing a generic rejection. From there:

Re-check the original title against the commercial release, including correct capitalization and punctuation.
Confirm songwriter names against a PRO database rather than memory or assumption.
Verify the original artist field lists the first/primary performer, not a cover artist or tribute act.
Make sure the release is tagged as a cover version in the submission form, not as an original track.
Resubmit once every field is corrected, rather than deleting and starting over, when the platform allows an edit-and-resubmit flow.

With Globex Music, correcting these fields and resubmitting typically moves back through moderation quickly, since fast review turnaround is built into the standard process rather than reserved for paid priority handling.

Does a rejection affect the $1 release cost?

No — a metadata rejection does not require paying again at most distributors, including Globex Music, as long as you correct the listed fields and resubmit the same release rather than creating a brand-new submission. This matters because the headline economics of cover distribution depend on the release going through cleanly: at $1 per release with no annual fee, a single avoidable rejection cycle is a minor delay, not a meaningful cost, whereas a distributor charging per-cover licensing fees on top of a subscription can turn repeated corrections into repeated charges.

How does this compare to distributors that review covers manually?

Services that route cover songs through manual licensing review often take longer to flag an error in the first place, since a human has to notice a mismatched songwriter credit rather than an automated check catching it at upload. TuneCore, for example, charges per-cover licensing fees on top of its base annual plan, so a rejected and resubmitted cover can mean paying the licensing fee more than once if the correction isn’t handled under the original submission. CD Baby’s standing per-single fee plus its ongoing royalty commission means a stalled release sits longer before it starts earning anything back. A flat $1 per release with automatic licensing reduces how much is riding on getting the paperwork right the first time, but it does not remove the need to enter accurate original-work details — no distributor can issue a mechanical license for a song it cannot identify.

A quick pre-submission checklist

Original title matches the commercial release exactly.
Songwriter names pulled from a PRO database, not assumed from the performer.
Original artist name is the first/primary recording artist, not another cover version.
Release correctly marked as a cover in the distributor’s submission form.
Your own artist and performer credits are separate from the original-work fields.

Getting these details right before the first submission is faster than fixing them after a rejection. But when a rejection does happen, it’s rarely a sign that the recording itself was the problem — it’s almost always a data-entry issue with a clear, specific fix.