( By contrast Joe covering Adele’s Hello in a different genre with a different fan base likely would not have been a concern for Adele’s team in the even Joe didn’t get a mechanical license)Īt the end of the day this is really a learning lesson for Jacquees’ team seeing that he’s largely built his career off of cover songs. Where the enforcement become worthwhile is when an individual stands to generate significant revenue at the expense of the copyright owners which in this case at the point it was taken down Jacquees version he generated millions of streams and views.Īnother determining factor which will be another post at another time is the impact to the brand by having a “knock-off” or “cover” in the market at the same time you are trying to establish your brand.Īs a new artist Ella Mai’s team may have felt that the impact to her brand by having a cover compete in the same genre with a similar fan base was worth the enforcement. (Keep in mind it takes about 1 Million views to make $1,000 on YouTube) Just because you can legally do something does not mean a Music Label or Publisher will waste the time or money on having lawyers pull down a song that will get at best a few thousand streams or views. “Why are there millions of covers on youtube that don’t get pulled down just like this?” So it is a very high likelihood the publisher would have said no even if Jacquees’ team had gone through the appropriate steps and is 9 times out of 10 why the PUBLISHER likely at the behest of the label had Jacquees’ version removed from YouTube. In this case Ella Mai had yet to even release her own video to the single. The Publisher can or cannot at their own discretion give permission and also sets their own price. Permission to do THAT my friends can only be given by the songwriter and producer whose rights are enforced by what is called a Publisher.
#Ella mai trip remix ft jacquees license
Once you combine a sound recording with a visual like Jacquees did to make this whole ass music video you need what is called a SYNC LICENSE to synchronize music and words with a video.
So now with said mechanical license you can sing and cover your little heart out….but obviously someone dropped the ball on the 9cent license and is why Jacquees’ cover was likely removed from SoundCloud.īUT the music video is where things actually went really wrong. In order to reproduce a cover of the sound recording all you need to do is request what is called a mechanical license which by law MUST be given to you and only costs 9.1 cents. The actual song your ear hears is called the Master recording and is likely owned by the record label. So how do artists cover other people’s songs all the time and how was THIS different?įirst you need to understand song ownership.