In Canada there is a licensing society to help with releasing your own recordings of other people’s songs. It works out to about $50 per song for up to 500 physical copies. In Canada it would cost a total of $1100 for a dozen songs. Digital is a different issue.

https://www.cmrra.ca/music-users/need-a-licence/

In the US there are several places that say they can do it. The Harry Fox Agency is the one I have heard about.

Here is an article to help you out. There is a lot of info on the web. https://www.tuneregistry.com/blog/how-to-legally-record-and-sell-a-cover-song-in-3-steps

Rev

Canadian Surf

http://www.urbansurfkings.com/

Thank you for the feedback, guys!

Back during the 2020 COVID shutdown, I was contemplating recording a 10-song album of covers we'd performed live at gigs.

I wondered what the legalities would have been like. For licensing $50-$100 a song, I'd easily went for it, seeing that you'd need to sell about 200 albums to break even.

Good to hear from you, Simon!

_

Hi, I'm Gellert, guitarist for The Fintastics.

https://www.facebook.com/TheFintastics

chiba wrote:

Hey Gellert - I put a Mötley Crüe song on my first EP and went through the licensing process. It was straightforward, but had a number of steps.

1. Create an account with a service like TuneLicensing (tunelicensing.com). You'll need a license for each way you plan to release each song - digital, vinyl, CD, cassette, etc. One sale = one "unit" towards your license. I got 100 for each of my release methods, at a cost of $29 (digital), $34 (CD), $34 (vinyl/LP). If I sell more than 100 copies in any of those mediums, I'll have to renew the license. To properly establish the license, you'll need a UPC for the album (see #2) and an ISRC (see #3) for each song on the album. These two things allow the licensing authorities to track your sales.

2. If you're selling physical copies, you'll need a UPC (bar code), a unique one for each medium - i.e., one for CD, one for vinyl. Create an account with a service like GS1 US (gs1us.com). Each bar code will cost you $30, but they last forever, so it's not a recurring cost.

3. Create an account with the ISRC (usirsrc.com). You'll need to create a registrant (I used my side business), and you must use the correct Country Code (they'll give you the right one for the USA) and Registrant Code (assigned by ISRC). The rest of the ISRC numbers include two digits for the year of the release and then 5 digits you make up yourself. The entire format is CC-RRR-YY-NNNNN. You'll also need the ISRC for each song if you put the songs on any streaming services. There is no cost associated with establishing this account or your ISRCs.

So to license one song for digital, CD and vinyl, cost me a total of $157. Had I included additional songs - and provided the licensing rate would be the same for the first one - each additional song would have only cost me $97, since the UPC cost is at the album level while the licensing cost is per song. If you only did one or two mediums instead of 3 like I did, the cost per song would be even less.

It seems like a lot, but if you want to be 100% legal and maintain the proper licenses, it's the way to go Let me know if you have any questions!

Wow, this is exactly what I was needing. I sincerely appreciate it!

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Hi, I'm Gellert, guitarist for The Fintastics.

https://www.facebook.com/TheFintastics

Glad I could help!

The thing that surprised me the most was that even though the song I covered was written by Nikki Sixx, publishing is split five ways - when you get the license (at least through the service I used), they show you exactly how it's broken down. Now I know precisely where my $0.523 per sale goes!

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Project: MAYHEM by Hypersonic Secret now available!

One of the beauties of digital distribution is that, at least as I understand it, you can setup to only pay for what you distribute, as opposed to paying for what you press with physical media. At least that’s what I got out of it, when I read what was on the Harry Fox site, although it wouldn’t surprise me if there were minimums involved, as Chiba mentions.

Normally, if you create physical media, and especially vinyl, you have to press a number of copies in order to make it financially feasible. So a band would want to have some albums to sell at their gigs and would pay for rights to press 500, or maybe even 1000 copies, and someone would end up with a box nearly filled with unsold copies decorating their basement floor, because the demand seldom outstripped the supply. The song publisher didn’t mind, because they get paid the same either way.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.