Ownership & rights
Certificate of Ownership
A certificate of ownership is a document identifying a specific track, naming its owner and recording the transfer of rights, issued alongside the assignment agreement. It is the artefact you produce when a platform, broadcaster, client or auditor asks you to prove that you are entitled to use the music.
In practice
A useful certificate names the buyer exactly as the legal entity that will use the music, identifies the track unambiguously, states what was transferred — master, composition, or both — and is verifiable independently rather than being a decorative PDF. Verification matters: a link or reference that a third party can check turns a claim into evidence. Certificates issued to an individual when the user is a company create a mismatch that resurfaces during procurement and insurance reviews.
How SoniBuyout® handles it
Every SoniBuyout includes a named certificate of ownership issued with the rights-assignment agreement and verifiable online, so a claim, an audit or a broadcaster request is answered with one link rather than a search through old invoices.
Real questions
Should the certificate be in my name or my company's?
In the name of the entity that will actually use the music. If a company publishes the content, the company should be the named owner.
Is a certificate the same as the contract?
No. The assignment agreement creates the transfer; the certificate documents and evidences it in a form that is easy to show to a third party.
Related terms
Own the track instead of renting it
Sonify Music sells exclusive buyouts of catalogue tracks: one payment, full ownership, the track removed from sale and a named certificate of ownership.