Ownership & rights
Music Rights
Music rights are the bundle of legal rights attached to a piece of music: rights in the recording, rights in the composition, and the rights to reproduce, perform, broadcast and adapt it.
In practice
Any commercial use touches several of these rights at once. Playing music in a shop involves performance rights; putting it in a video involves synchronisation and reproduction; selling copies involves mechanical rights. Buying a track outright from a single rights holder collapses all of that into one transaction, which is why buyouts remove most clearance work.
Real questions
Who owns the rights to a song by default?
The composer owns the composition and the producer or performer owns the recording, unless a contract says otherwise.
Which rights do I need to play music in my venue?
Public performance rights. In most countries these are collected by a society unless the music is unregistered and licensed directly by its owner.
Are music rights the same in every country?
The categories are broadly harmonised by international treaties, but durations, formalities and collecting practice differ. A worldwide written assignment is the safest form.
Credit is not a right
Naming the artist does not grant you any rights. Attribution can be a condition of a licence, but it never replaces the licence or the assignment itself.
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.