To find the copyright owner of a song, start by recognizing that every song has two separate copyrights — one for the composition and one for the recording — and then search the free online databases run by performing rights organizations, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, and the U.S. Copyright Office. Most commercially released music can be traced to a publisher and a label within a few minutes. Which owner you actually need depends on what you plan to do with the song.
Two Copyrights, Two Owners
When a song is recorded, two distinct copyrighted works exist side by side. The musical composition covers the melody, harmony, and lyrics. The sound recording covers the specific performance captured on a particular track.1U.S. Copyright Office. What Musicians Should Know about Copyright These are owned and licensed separately, which is why one search can lead you to two completely different rights holders.
The composition copyright usually belongs to the songwriter or to a music publisher the songwriter has assigned rights to. The publisher registers the work, licenses it, collects royalties, and fields requests for covers and film uses. Most professional songwriters work with a publisher, and the publisher generally controls day-to-day licensing decisions even when the writer remains a co-owner.
The sound recording copyright belongs to whoever financed and produced that particular recording. For major-label artists, the label almost always owns the master. Independent artists may own theirs outright. A single composition like “Rolling in the Deep” can have dozens of separate sound recording copyrights if different artists have each recorded their own version.2U.S. Copyright Office. Circular 56 – Copyright Registration for Sound Recordings Using someone else’s recording in a video, for example, requires permission from the composition owner and the recording owner both.
What to Gather Before You Search
A few minutes of prep work saves real frustration. Collect what you can from album artwork, streaming credits, or Wikipedia:
- Song title and performing artist. These are your primary search terms in every database.
- Songwriter and composer names, which are often different from the performing artist.
- Publisher name, sometimes printed on album artwork or listed under “song credits” on a streaming service.
- Record label, usually printed on the album cover or digital release page. This points you toward the sound recording owner.
- ISRC and ISWC codes. The International Standard Recording Code identifies a specific sound recording; the International Standard Musical Work Code identifies the underlying composition. Plug either directly into a PRO or MLC search to bypass title-matching headaches.3ASCAP. All About ISWCs and How They Can Help You Get Paid
- IPI number. An Interested Parties Information number is a unique international identifier assigned to individual songwriters and publishers. If you find one, it pinpoints exactly which party you’re looking at, even when multiple people share the same name.4BMI. What Is an IPI/CAE Number?
You won’t always have all of these. Title and artist are enough to start.
Search the PRO Databases First
Performing rights organizations collect royalties when compositions are publicly performed, and each maintains a searchable online catalog. Four PROs operate in the United States, and virtually every commercially released song is affiliated with one of them. That makes their databases the fastest way to identify who owns and publishes a composition.
The strongest starting point is SongView, a joint project that reconciles ownership data across ASCAP, BMI, GMR, and SESAC. SongView covers over 38 million musical works and shows consistent songwriter, publisher, and ownership-share information regardless of which PRO you search from.5BMI. Songview Search A SongView checkmark next to a result means the data has been cross-verified between participating PROs.
You can reach SongView results through any of the individual PRO tools:
- ASCAP Repertory. Search by title, performer, writer, publisher, Work ID, or ISWC at ascap.com/repertory.6ASCAP. About ASCAP Repertory Search
- BMI Repertoire, at repertoire.bmi.com, with the same search fields.5BMI. Songview Search
- SESAC Repertory, which shows song titles, SESAC’s represented share, and associated songwriters and publishers.7SESAC. Repertory – SESAC
- Global Music Rights, a smaller PRO representing high-profile writers such as Bruce Springsteen, Bruno Mars, and Drake. Search at globalmusicrights.com/search.8Global Music Rights. Search Catalog
A result typically shows songwriter names, the publisher name, and each party’s ownership share. That publisher is usually your first contact for licensing the composition. When a song is split across multiple publishers affiliated with different PROs, you may need permission from each one.
Try the Mechanical Licensing Collective
The Mechanical Licensing Collective was created by the Music Modernization Act to administer blanket mechanical licenses for streaming and download services in the United States.9The Mechanical Licensing Collective. How It Works Federal law requires the MLC to maintain a public, searchable database of musical works, their copyright owners, and the sound recordings those works are embedded in.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 115 – Scope of Exclusive Rights in Nondramatic Musical Works
The MLC Public Work Search at portal.themlc.com/search lets you look up compositions by title, writer, or publisher at no cost.11The Mechanical Licensing Collective. The MLC Public Work Search It’s especially useful when a PRO search comes up empty, because the MLC’s data flows through a different pipeline: digital service providers report usage data, and publishers register their catalogs directly. The one caveat is that MLC data is only as complete as what its members have submitted, and it does not yet cover all unmatched works. Use it as a supplement to PRO searches, not a replacement.
Check U.S. Copyright Office Records
Copyright protection begins automatically the moment a song is written down or recorded. No registration is required.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 302 – Duration of Copyright: Works Created on or After January 1, 1978 Plenty of songs, especially independent releases and older works, were never registered. But when a work is registered, Copyright Office records tell you exactly who claimed ownership and when.
The Copyright Public Records System at publicrecords.copyright.gov contains registration and recordation records going back decades, including scanned card catalog entries from before the digital era.13U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright Public Records System Search by title, author, or claimant. Registration records show the author, the claimant (often the publisher or label), and the effective date of registration. Recordation records may show transfers that happened after the original registration, useful for older songs that have changed hands.
If online records don’t answer your question, the Copyright Office will search its records for you at $200 per hour with a two-hour minimum.14U.S. Copyright Office. Circular 4 – Copyright Office Fees Steep for a casual inquiry, but for high-stakes licensing or tangled ownership histories a professional search can surface transfers and assignments that the online catalog doesn’t.
Finding the Sound Recording Owner
PRO and MLC databases focus on compositions. Tracking down who owns the actual recording takes a different path. Start with the label credited on the release. For major-label releases, the label name is printed on the album artwork and listed on streaming platforms. The label’s website or business affairs department can confirm whether it still controls the master.
Community-maintained databases like Discogs and MusicBrainz help with reissues and catalog titles that have been bought and sold between labels. They catalog detailed release information including label, catalog number, and format. They won’t give you a definitive legal answer about current ownership, but they narrow the search considerably.
For independent releases, the artist often owns the master outright. Check the artist’s official website or contact their management. If the release was distributed through an aggregator like DistroKid or TuneCore, the artist typically retains ownership and the aggregator can sometimes facilitate contact.
Check Whether the Song Is in the Public Domain
Before spending time chasing an owner, check whether the copyright has expired. If it has, the composition is free to use without permission.
For songs written on or after January 1, 1978, copyright lasts for the life of the songwriter plus 70 years. Works made for hire last 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever comes first.12Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 302 – Duration of Copyright: Works Created on or After January 1, 1978 The rules for pre-1978 works are more complicated, but the practical upshot is this: as of January 1, 2026, all musical compositions published in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain, and sound recordings published in 1925 or earlier are also free to use.
One critical distinction. Even when a composition enters the public domain, modern recordings of that composition remain copyrighted. You can record your own version of “Georgia on My Mind” (published 1930) without any composition license, but you cannot use Ray Charles’s 1960 recording without permission from whoever owns that master.
When You Can’t Find the Owner
Sometimes the trail goes cold. The publisher folded, the songwriter died with no clear estate, or the work was never registered with any PRO. These “orphan works” are one of copyright law’s unsolved problems. Congress has considered legislation to address the issue, but no statutory framework exists yet.
If you’ve hit a dead end, you have a few practical options. Reconsider whether fair use covers your intended use; after an exhaustive and unsuccessful search, the absence of an asserted market may strengthen a fair use argument under the “market effect” factor. Consider whether a different song could serve the same purpose, one with clearly identifiable rights holders or already in the public domain. Or scale your planned use back to something more modest that fits more comfortably within fair use.
Whatever you decide, document every step of your search. If an owner surfaces later, a documented good-faith search won’t make you immune to an infringement claim, but it shows you weren’t acting recklessly, which can matter if willfulness comes up.
Getting the Right License
Identifying the owner is only half the job. You also need the right type of license for what you plan to do with the song. Different uses trigger different licenses, and mixing them up is where people get into trouble.
- A mechanical license is required to record and distribute your own version of a song (a cover), covering physical formats, digital downloads, and streaming.
- A synchronization license is required to pair a composition with visual content: a film, TV show, ad, YouTube video, or video game. There is no compulsory sync license; the publisher can say no or name any price.
- A master use license is required to use someone else’s actual recording in sync with visual media. It comes from the sound recording owner, usually the label, and is negotiated alongside the sync license.
- A public performance license covers songs played in a public venue, broadcast on radio or TV, or streamed. Venues and broadcasters usually obtain blanket licenses from the PROs rather than licensing songs individually.
For cover songs, federal law provides a compulsory mechanical license. Once a composition has been commercially released, anyone can record and distribute a new version by following the notice procedures in the Copyright Act and paying the statutory royalty rate.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 115 – Scope of Exclusive Rights in Nondramatic Musical Works For digital formats, this runs through the MLC’s blanket license. For physical formats, you serve a notice of intention on the copyright owner before or within 30 days of making the recording. Services like the Harry Fox Agency’s Songfile tool can handle the paperwork for both physical and digital cover releases.
Sync licenses have no compulsory path. You must contact the publisher directly and negotiate terms. The publisher has complete discretion to grant or deny, and silence does not equal consent. If a composition has multiple publishers, you need clearance from each.
What Happens If You Skip the License
Using a copyrighted song without permission is infringement, and the financial exposure is significant. A copyright owner can sue for either actual damages (their proven losses plus your profits) or statutory damages. Statutory damages run from $750 to $30,000 per work as the court sees fit. If the infringement was willful, the ceiling jumps to $150,000 per work.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits
One catch cuts both ways: statutory damages and attorney’s fees are only available if the copyright was registered before the infringement began, or within three months of the work’s first publication.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 412 – Registration as Prerequisite to Certain Remedies for Infringement Most commercially released songs meet this threshold, so don’t assume you’re safe because a work seems obscure. And beyond lawsuits, platforms like YouTube and Spotify remove infringing content through automated takedown systems, which can happen within hours of upload and leave a strike on your account.