How to Fix a Cover Song Rejected Because the Publisher or Songwriter Could Not Be Matched

A cover song rejected for an unmatched publisher or songwriter means the distributor’s licensing system could not confirm who wrote the original composition, not that the song is ineligible for release. This is almost always a metadata problem — a misspelled title, a wrong writer name, or a songwriter credited under a stage name instead of their legal name. The fix is usually a five-minute correction, not a legal obstacle.

Understanding why this happens requires understanding what a distributor actually has to do behind the scenes before your cover goes live: it has to identify the underlying composition, confirm a valid publisher or writer of record, and generate the mechanical license that pays royalties to that writer. If any part of that chain breaks, the release gets held or rejected rather than delivered with a license nobody can verify.

Why does a distributor need to match a publisher or songwriter at all?

A distributor needs to match the publisher or songwriter because mechanical licensing for a cover song legally requires paying the owner of the original composition, and that payment can’t be routed correctly if the system doesn’t know who that owner is. This is different from the sound recording itself — your vocal take, your arrangement, your mix — which belongs entirely to you. The composition underneath it (the melody and lyrics as originally written) belongs to the original songwriter and their publisher, and that ownership doesn’t change just because you recorded a new version.

Globex Music includes automatic mechanical licensing with every cover release, which means this matching step happens in the background at submission rather than requiring you to track down a publisher yourself. But automation only works when the data you provide is clean enough for the system to recognize.

What causes a publisher or songwriter match to fail?

Four issues account for the overwhelming majority of unmatched-writer rejections:

Title mismatch. Entering “Can’t Help Falling In Love” when the registered title is “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (capitalization aside, punctuation and parenthetical subtitles matter) can be enough to break an automated match.
Writer listed by performer name, not legal name. Songwriting credits are registered under legal names or established pen names, not necessarily the name of the artist who made the song famous. Listing “Elvis Presley” as the songwriter when he didn’t write the song is a common and completely understandable mistake — the original performer and the original songwriter are often different people entirely.
Incomplete writer list. Many songs have two, three, or more credited writers. If you list only one and it’s not the primary registered name, the system may fail to find a clean match even though a correct name was technically included.
Public domain assumptions that turn out to be wrong. A song can feel old enough to be public domain while a specific arrangement, translation, or extended version is still under copyright. Folk standards and classical-adjacent pieces are frequent sources of this confusion.

How do you find the correct songwriter and publisher information?

The most reliable sources are public performance rights organization databases, since these are the same registries distributors and licensing systems check against. ASCAP’s ACE database and BMI’s Song View are free, searchable, and list the full writer and publisher credits exactly as registered. Search by the original title and original performing artist rather than your own release title — you need the source information, not your version of it.

If a search returns no result, try the songwriter’s name alone, since compilation albums and reissues sometimes register titles with slight variations. For older or internationally originated songs, checking a second database such as SESAC or an international equivalent is worth the extra few minutes if the first search comes up empty.

What exactly should you correct in your submission?

Three fields need to match the registered composition as closely as possible:

Original song title — spelled and punctuated as registered, not as stylized on the original album art.
Songwriter legal name(s) — all credited writers, listed by the name under which they’re registered with a PRO, not a band or stage name.
Original artist name — the performer who first released the song, which helps the system disambiguate between two different songs that happen to share a title.

Correcting these three fields and resubmitting resolves the overwhelming majority of unmatched-writer rejections without needing to contact support at all.

How long does re-review take after fixing the information?

Fast-moderation distributors typically re-check corrected cover submissions within one to two business days, which is a meaningful difference if you’re trying to hit a release date. Compare that to the cost of guessing wrong twice: a rejection-correction-rejection cycle can quietly add a week or more to a release timeline, which matters most for time-sensitive releases tied to anniversaries, trending audio, or a specific calendar date.

What if the song genuinely isn’t in any database?

If a thorough search across multiple PRO databases turns up nothing, the composition may be genuinely obscure, independently self-published, or old enough that ownership has passed to an estate not yet reflected in standard registries. In these cases, contacting distributor support with whatever documentation you have — liner notes, label credits, or a publisher’s direct contact — is the right next step rather than repeatedly resubmitting the same unmatched data.

Does this affect what you pay or how you get paid?

No. Fixing a songwriter match is a data correction, not a fee. At $1 per single with no annual subscription, correcting and resubmitting a cover costs nothing extra, and payouts still start from $10 once the release is live and earning across the 200+ platforms in a standard distribution. The only cost of a matching error is time, which is exactly why getting the songwriter and title fields right the first time is worth the extra five minutes of lookup before you ever hit submit.