Yep, we’ll never judge a song by it’s cover.

Stores and territories

You can distribute covers through RouteNote to Spotify, Deezer, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Nuuday, Anghami, Tidal, KKBOX and JioSaavn without needing a mechanical license. If you want to distribute your content to more stores than this selection, you will need to either purchase a mechanical license for the cover track(s), or to exclude certain territories from your release.

Want to obtain a mechanical license for your cover track? We’d recommend Affordable Song Licensing!

If you don’t obtain the licenses, the following territories will need to be excluded from your release:
USA, Canada, Mexico, India and Pakistan.
You can do this within the ‘Manage Stores’ section of your release. See this page for more information about stores and territories for covers.

Please note! RouteNote can not distribute any covers to Korean service providers (Melon, Bugs!, Flo, Vibe, and Genie) without written permission from the original artist.

It is also worth noting that not all stores will accept soundalikes. This term refers to a release which has been created to sound almost identical to an already existing release.

If you can obtain written permission from the original artist for your cover, please contact moderation@routenote.com with any evidence, including your username and the UPC of the release.

Metadata

For the track title, all cover songs (including parodies) will need to have the exact same title as the original.

When releasing a cover version, you’ll need to ensure that you list the composition owner(s) or publisher(s) in the ‘C Line’ of your release metadata – if you need to credit multiple artists, please ensure that these are separated by a comma. The C line should list the original artist but shouldn’t list the composers, so for example if you were covering “She Loves You” by The Beatles, the C line should credit The Beatles, not John Lennon and Paul McCartney. See this page for more information about the C line and covers.

The ‘P line‘ should be the name of whichever artist is performing the cover. See this page for more information about the P line and covers.

You shouldn’t add the artist whose track you’re covering as a composer artist in your artist roles. Stores also won’t allow you to mention the artist, or the album (or film, if it’s a cover of a song from a movie) it’s from, in any of your titles.

Track title: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana cover)
Track title: Shake It Off (from 1989)
Track title: The Quidditch Game (from Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone)

The section in red wouldn’t be allowed in any of these titles.

If your release is already approved and you haven’t added these artist roles to your release, here’s a quick guide on how to update your release to include them.

You should list the original Composer/s and Lyricist/s within the Publishing Details sections of your release.

Artwork

Stores won’t let you mention the original artist in your artwork, or use images of them (even if it’s drawn artwork rather than a photograph).

Audio

A cover version cannot be a remix in any way, and it cannot use any of the original sound recording, including samples. Publishers who deem the cover song to be in violation of these principles may decide to assert their rights.

For more information on uploading cover songs, check out our video!

Check out the full RouteNote Style Guide here!

More on cover releases:
How do I format a cover with RouteNote?
How do I credit the original artist if my release is a cover?
What is a cover song?
Can I cover a song and use audio from the original track?
How do I format stores and territories for a cover release without a mechanical license?
How do I license a cover?
Which stores and territories can I send a cover track to?
What should I put in the C line if my release is a cover?
What should I put in the P line if my release is a cover?
Can I choose ‘soundtrack’ as my genre if the release is a cover?