Music Rights and Royalties

In a nutshell -
just know that you DO need to pay a royalty fee any time you are recording your version of a cover song!
Even if it is a simple demo CD - whether you hand out to bars looking for gigs or sharing with family members.
If your version is good enough to go viral in some form or fashion, you want to be on the right side of the legalities!!

The quest for information on Copyrights can be a short as a simple answer, or as long as it takes to pass your bar exam!!

A few resources to start with include the following:

Tony Van Veen of DiscMakers has a short and sweet 5-minute video on YouTube explaining the recording of cover songs -
and which royalties YOU need to pay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udgnkNtkCnk

THE big one - Harry Fox Agency
Yeh - they handle all the major labels: https://www.harryfox.com/

Music Reports: https://www.musicreports.com/

Borrowed from Wikipedia - “Music Reports has compiled and maintains Songdex, the world's largest database and registry of music rights, with information on over 120 million sound recordings and related musical compositions, publishers, and composers.”

But they do streaming royalties around the world too, so dig deeper!

The Royalty Exchange: https://royaltyexchange.com/

From their website:

What We Do
Royalty Exchange matches creators seeking funding with investors seeking catalogs.
This gives creators the ability to raise money and fund their careers debt-free, and investors access to a new, high-yield asset class.

Just know that you DO need to pay a royalty fee any time you are recording your version of a cover song!
Do your due diligence and make sure you get it right before your song goes viral!
Even if it is a simple demo CD - whether you hand out to bars looking for gigs or sharing with family members.
If your version is good enough to go viral in some form or fashion, you want to be on the right side of the legalities of it all!!