Releasing a Cover Version – Kycker

Releasing a Cover Version

Releasing a cover song is a great way to connect with new audiences and build your profile as an artist. It can part of your brand, showcasing songs that have influenced you from artists you admire.

Before you can release a cover song, you need to make sure you get the right license in place that allows you to do it without infringing the copyright and getting into trouble.

Note – This doesn’t affect doing a cover song on Insta or TikTok, you can ahead and do that without any issues. But if you release that cover song for streaming and download, you need to follow this process.

Cover Song Decisions

First of all, what are you picking and why?

If you go for a really popular song, you may get a lot of attention, but you also may get lost if lots of other people are doing the same popular song cover.

If you go a little more niche, or pick a song that isn’t getting so much love, you could get out to a larger audience.

Will it appeal to existing fans, and will potential new fans that you get with the cover like your original material. The balance is picking the right song and interpretation to satisfy both camps.

Licensing

To distribute a cover version legally you need a mechanical license, giving you the rights to record and distribute the song.

There are a few licensing agencies out there you can use. We personally recommend Easy Song, that’s partly because that’s who we use, but also partly because they are a customer focused company like us. We don’t like chatbots and neither do they, you get real people dealing with you.

But there are other providers. Harry Fox Agency is the biggest, with their ‘Songfile’ site. And you may have something else in your region that’s similar, so do a bit of searching.

Crediting

When you distribute your cover song you’ll need to make sure you credit all of the original songwriters. You’ll get this information on your license.

Physical Copies

If you decide to sell a CD, vinyl or any other medium you’ll need to pay mechanical royalties. This can be taken at the pressing plant, but if you self create you need to pay the mechanicals over to the songwriters (usually through a publishing company).

This also true for digital downloads. Your license will allow a certain number of downloads, after which you have to pay extra and make sure the mechanical royalties (they’re still called mechanical even though it’s a digital sale) get to the songwriters.

What’s next?

A cover is a way of developing new fans, it’s a form of promotion. The release should be part of an overall strategy on how you keep and engage your fans:

  • What content you have for new fans who find you through the cover?
  • What will you follow up with to keep these new fans engaged?
  • What social content will you produce that engages old and new fans?
  • Will you follow with socials covers and test the new fan base?

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