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In a nutshell, mechanical fees are paid on physical or digital products. This is different from radio play or venue performance fees, which are collected by PRO’s – performance rights organizations like BMI, ASCAP and SESAC in the US, SOCAN in Canada, and others in other countries.
Let me address labels, and let’s be clear, most indie artists today own their own labels. No matter how small a “run” of your project you print or make available for download, you need to understand the legal and ethical responsibilities you have to the publishers of your songs. Here’s a simple summary from the Harry Fox site (Harry Fox is the leading provider of mechanical licenses in the US):
If you are manufacturing and distributing copies of a song which you did not write, and you have not already reached an agreement with the song’s publisher, you need to obtain a mechanical license. This is required under U.S. Copyright Law, regardless of whether or not you are selling the copies that you made.
You do not need a mechanical license if you are recording and distributing a song you wrote yourself, or if the song is in the public domain. If you are not sure if the song you are looking to license is in the public domain, and therefore does not require license authority, we suggest you use the search on www.pdinfo.com.
How much does a mechanical license cost?
Even with the recently raised fee, really not much.
As of January 1, 2025, US statutory mechanical rights fee is $.127 (12.7 cents) per physical or digital copy, as long as the song recording is under 5 minutes long. That 12.7 cents is to be divided among all publishers, who then distribute to their writers according to the contract they have with the writers (not the label’s responsibility). So if a label wanted to buy a license for, say, 1000 units… divided as 500 physical plus 500 digital copies, they would divide $127 among all publishers per song on the recording project. In addition, if the license is obtained through Harry Fox, there is a small processing fee for their service.
How do you get these licenses?
The record label or label rep is legally obligated to obtain licenses either directly from the song publisher(s) or through the Harry Fox Agency if the song is licensed there. This is the tedious part… the label must contact and obtain mutually signed mechanical licenses from all publishers and co-publishers who own each separate song. Publisher info can be obtained by contacting and asking the writers who their publishers are. If you’re an independent songwriter not affiliated with Harry Fox… have a blank custom mechanical license handy that you can fill out with your info and provide a label when you find out they’ve cut your song! (scroll down to find a custom license with fillable fields!)
When do you need to get these licenses?
Before releasing the project! In fact, before recording the songs, labels should make sure the license is obtainable! The potential problem is: publishers have the right to choose who first releases their song. With a new unreleased song, the label needs to get the license to affirm they have permission for first release, or the recording budget for that song could be spent on something that can’t be sold.
To recap… The label should issue and pay for a mechanical license for each song before they are sold. The label would estimate how many digital or physical units they would want to sell at first and pay $ .091 per unit per song (for 1000 units this would be $91 per song) to split between publishers.
Do I have to do a mechanical license with my own co-writers?
YES you absolutely do! If you, as artist, release a song publically that you co-wrote with someone else, you (or your label) must legally process a mechanical license with every one of your cowriter’s publishing companies, and again, do it before it’s publically released. Yes, you get your split. If you have 2 co-writers, they split 2/3rds of the total mechanicals.
The fairness should be evident… that’s the only way they benefit from you cutting the song they helped you write.
Information you’ll need to collect for each song:
- Writer and co-writer name(s), PRO(s) [BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, etc], percentage(s) and addresses.
- Publisher and co-pub name(s), PRO(s), percentage(s) and addresses for where to send payment.
Other random FAQ’s about mechanical licenses:
- Licensor = Label rep would be whoever represents the record label. Licensee = the publisher of that particular song.
- Yes, you need a license form for each song, even with the same songwriter(s) and publishing company(s) involved.
- No, the songwriter does not sign the license… the publisher does. The agreement is between label and publisher.
- The label would then pay the publisher the mechanical license fee. If you own the label, of course that would be you:)
- How the songwriter gets paid… if contractually obligated, the publishing company will split mechanicals with the songwriter, according to the contract they have between them. This is not the label’s responsibility; it’s the publisher’s.
Need A blank custom mechanical license?
When a record label approaches me concerning one of my songs, I give them any co-publishing information so they can contact those publishers, and I use a custom license from my own publishing company. I got the following form from an independent record label, and created a fillable form you can download here:
Creating a win-win situation for the artist/label and the writers/publishers keeps great music rewarding for all. Understanding mechanical licenses for music projects is information every record label, songwriter and publisher should have. If anyone has any other questions or can offer any other information about mechanicals, I welcome your comments!
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Production teams: For the best training to know how to help your singers capture magic, check out
www.VocalProductionWorkshop.com .
What if you just wanna sing a cover song every now and then and post it on your Facebook page for your followers to hear you sing once in a while?? Just casually… not selling it for anything just doing it for entertainment. And then the second part of the question would be what if eventually I get a lot of followers and I have a separate business in conjunction with that same page. Maybe it’s about healthcare or something, but I want to once in a while showcase that I used to be a professional singer and would like to just sing to entertain people. Do I need to get some sort of license for copyright laws or how does that work?
Hi Tammy; thanks for the good question. YES, you must license your performance of a cover song you upload online, even if you never intend to make money on it, you credit the writers, etc. If you sing a cover in live performance, that’s a different matter. You don’t have to worry about getting any license for that… it’s the venue’s responsibility and if they offer live entertainment they usually do the legal thing and have a license deal in place with PRO’s such as ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. But if you put it online, the onus is on YOU to obtain the license. Hope that helps!
My daughter has released two songs written by other songwriters through TuneCore, and one music video to go with one of the songs. She has registered herself with BMI, but is not the songwriter on these two particular songs. She has no label. Her manager, who also requests to be listed as the producer on the music, has obtained the mechanical licenses on both songs and a license for the music video. However, the manager put all of the licenses in their name, not my daughters. Is that normal practice?
OK you said these songs are written by other than your daughter, and I’m going to assume they are not written by her manager/producer either. If this manager ‘obtained the licenses’ on songs for which he is not a writer on, that surely means that the manager PAID the publishers who DO own publishing rights to the songs. If the manager PAID the licensing fees, maybe that’s why their name is on the licenses. If the manager RECEIVED license fee payment for songs not written by them, something is wildly amiss.
You are correct in everything you responded. I just would have thought that my daughter, who cut and released the song, would have paid for the license and put the permission to stream in her name (she’s 18 yo), but was not given the option to. Nor will they give us a copy of the license. I guess I’m wondering if it matters if the license is in his name or her name as long as the song name (which is released under my daughter’s name) is on the license? I’m just trying to avoid negative reprocussions in the long run.
You are correct in everything you responded. I just would have thought that my daughter, who cut and released the song, would have paid for the license and put the permission to stream in her name (she’s 18 yo), but was not given the option to. Nor will they give us a copy of the license. I guess I’m wondering if it matters if the license is in his name or her name as long as the song name (which is released under my daughter’s name) is on the license? I’m just trying to avoid negative reprocussions in the long run.
I am not a lawyer, but I would assume whoever paid for the actual recordings, unless you signed a contract to the contrary, owns them, and should be responsible for the license fees like an independent record label (sometimes called a ‘vanity label’). It sounds like your manager is acting as the record label. This is why it’s so important to understand on the front end of recording what the agreements between all parties are. But legally, if the licenses have been processed and paid by someone, there shouldn’t be any legal repercussions from the song publishers/writers to worry about. But the best thing you can do is to meet with an entertainment lawyer to protect your daughter’s interests, and to know what agreements you and the manager need to have between you. Misunderstandings can cause unnecessary business relationship issues; then there is abject fraud to avoid, too. You really need to contact a lawyer.