Music Rights Checklist Before You Release

Before a release goes live, somebody has to be able to say that every part of it is theirs to release: the recording, the song, any sample or beat, the artwork and the voices. Most rights problems are not dramatic court cases. They are a licence that was never signed, a split nobody wrote down or a sample that slipped into the final mix, found after a store has already published the release.

This guide is the checklist we would work through before pressing Distribute. It explains the rights inside a release, who normally owns each, how permission and money flow for each one, and the questions to ask about samples, covers, remixes, collaborators, leased beats and AI tools. It is practical guidance, not legal advice. Copyright differs between countries and contracts decide a great deal, so a music lawyer is the right person for a real dispute.

Two sets of rights in every track

A recorded song carries at least two copyrights. The composition is the song itself: melody, harmony and lyrics. The recording, usually called the master, is one captured performance of that song. The UK Intellectual Property Office commissioned a short guide, Music Copyright Explained, and its first key fact is that there are two sets of music rights. The US Copyright Office makes the same point in its note What Musicians Should Know about Copyright: a song and a recording of it are commonly owned and licensed separately.

Copyright arises when the work is created. In the UK nobody has to apply or pay a fee, and there is no register, as GOV.UK explains in how copyright protects your work. The Music Copyright Explained guide describes the usual starting point: the song belongs to whoever wrote it, the recording to whoever organised for it to be made, and people who create something together own it together, so they need to agree the split, document it and log it.

A third group sits beside the owners. People who sang or played on a recording can hold rights in their performance even when they do not own the recording. That is why PPL, the UK collecting society for recorded music, pays both recording rightsholders and performers.

Who owns what, and how each is handled

Right	What it covers	Usually held by	How it is handled	Read next
Master (recording)	The recorded performance, as a file	Whoever organised and paid for the recording: you, a producer or a label	Stores pay your distributor, who reports to you. Content ID is an optional extra for eligible recordings.	YouTube Content ID
Composition (song)	Melody and lyrics	Songwriters, often through a publisher	Publishing societies and publishers. In the UK, PRS for Music licenses performances and MCPS licenses copying.	Royalty splits and payouts
Neighbouring rights	Playing or broadcasting the recording in public; the performers' share	Recording rightsholders and performers	In the UK, PPL licenses broadcasters and venues and pays its members.	PPL and neighbouring rights
Sync	Using the music with moving images	The song side and the recording side each give their own permission	Negotiated directly, one production at a time.	Sync licensing

The point of the table is the last column. A streaming statement reports master income from stores and nothing else. Songwriting income, public performance income and sync fees run through different channels, so registering for one does nothing for the others. PPL also says it does not handle every right in a recording: on-demand streaming of a specific track, for example, is not something it manages.

What the Release Wizard asks you to declare

WBBT turns these questions into fields you answer for every track, and the answers are reviewed. They are rights statements, not formalities.

• Composition: Original Composition or Cover Song. A cover needs song-side permission, which the cover song guide walks through.
• Content Ownership: 100% Original (My Content), or Contains Samples (License Required). Choosing the second option means the release cannot be submitted until clearance documents are uploaded in the Legal Documents box, which accepts PDF, JPG and PNG files.
• AI Usage: No AI Used, AI Assisted or Fully AI Generated. A track that declares AI use needs the invoice or licence of the tool. How to distribute AI music explains what stores and WBBT expect.
• Territories: select only the countries where you hold the rights. A licence limited to one region should not be used to publish worldwide.
• Credits: every track needs a Producer, a Composer with a full first and last name, and a Performer. For a cover, enter the original writers as the composers.

The final review then asks for five confirmations: that the information is accurate, that you accept responsibility for your content and local tax obligations, that you are at least 18, that the release is not under an active exclusive contract with another record label and that you hold the rights needed for distribution, and that you accept the Distribution Agreement. Ticking them is a statement made to WBBT and to the stores, so do not tick them just to move on. The rights review is also separate from a store's own checks: a release that passes one can still be refused by the other, and rights conflicts are among the common reasons for a return.

Samples, loops and remixes

Using part of another recording needs two permissions: one from the owner of that recording and one from the owner of the song inside it. A remix works the same way, because it builds on the original recording and the original song. Neither a short length nor a vague resemblance is a safe harbour. GOV.UK's guidance on exceptions to copyright describes the exceptions as specific and limited, several depending on fair dealing, which has no fixed definition and is judged case by case. The US Copyright Office adds that trying and failing to reach a rightsholder does not stand in for permission.

Royalty-free sample packs are a different matter, but they are licensed to you on the pack's terms. Read them for three things: whether release on streaming services is allowed, whether the sounds may be registered in a content-matching system, and whether other producers are using the same loops. Shared loops are one reason a recording is not a good Content ID reference.

Leased beats

A leased beat is a licence, not a purchase. The producer usually keeps ownership and sets limits on what you may do. Whether you can distribute the song, how many streams the licence allows, and whether you may register the recording for Content ID are three separate questions, and the licence has to answer each. Releasing a song made on a leased beat covers them in detail, including what to tell WBBT before you submit.

Collaborators and splits

Write down, for every track, who wrote what, who performed, who produced and what share each person holds of the song and of the recording. Treat the two as separate lists, because a session singer may be paid a fee and hold no share, while a co-writer may hold a share of the song and have no claim on the master. Where your account supports splits, WBBT's Teams and Splits workflow can invite collaborators and apply an agreed share of the recording income to them. Any change applies to future accounting and does not rewrite payments already made. The guide to royalty splits and payouts has a worked example.

The wizard collects composer names and shares because other registrations depend on them. If the shares you enter do not match the agreement you made, the mismatch will surface later, usually when a society or a store asks.

Music made with AI tools

AI changes the ownership question as well as the store rules. In its report on copyright and artificial intelligence, the US Copyright Office concluded in January 2025 that using AI as a tool to assist a human does not affect protection for the output, that purely AI-generated material is not protected, and that, with generally available tools today, prompts alone do not give a user enough control over the result. Human contributions are judged case by case. A track made mostly with a generator may therefore be harder to protect, and the tool's own terms decide what you may do with it commercially.

For WBBT, an AI declaration must be accurate and backed by the tool's invoice or licence, and music declared as AI-generated or AI-assisted cannot be submitted for Content ID. The two rules point the same way: say what the track is, and keep the paperwork.

Content ID, PPL and sync are separate decisions

Permission to distribute a track does not settle any of these.

• Content ID. YouTube limits Content ID to owners with exclusive rights to what they submit, and it excludes licensed music where the licence is not exclusive. Content ID is available from the Basic plan upwards, and each request is reviewed by WBBT. See YouTube Content ID for independent artists and the service page.
• PPL. The UK option is a per-release choice for recordings you control and that nobody has registered yet. Registering a recording twice causes delays. The PPL guide and the PPL service page describe it.
• Sync. Placement in film, television, advertising or games is a negotiation with its own paperwork. Read the sync licensing guide before you sign anything that gives anyone exclusive rights.

If you release other people's music

A label or manager carries the same duties for a whole roster, and the paperwork is where releases go wrong. Keep one rights file per release. It should hold each artist agreement, split sheet, sample or beat licence, cover permission and AI invoice, together with the details that decide whether a licence still applies: the licensed track, scope of use, territories, start date and end date.

Licences end. WBBT's advice is not to carry on distributing beyond the rights you hold. If a licence is due to expire, contact support before the date with the affected recordings and territories, and either document a renewal or arrange a takedown. A clearance for one release does not follow the music into a re-release, a new version or a compilation, so ask again. If you move a catalogue between distributors, the guide to switching distributors shows which records to carry across.

A pre-release rights checklist

1. List every contributor for the recording and the song: writers, performers, producers, mixers and anyone who supplied a sample or a beat.
2. Write the splits down for the song and for the recording separately, and get each person to confirm them in writing.
3. Find the paper for anything borrowed. Every sample, loop, beat, stem and cover needs a licence or permission that you can open and read.
4. Read each licence for its limits: release on streaming services, territory, term, stream caps, credit wording and whether content matching is allowed.
5. Make the wizard answers match the paper: composition type, content ownership, AI usage and territories.
6. Upload the documents that the answers call for, and keep your own copies with the project.
7. Check for existing registrations of the recording with another Content ID provider or with PPL, and leave the matching options off if they exist.
8. Decide on extras last: Content ID, PPL and sync only after the rights above are clear.
9. Keep the record of what you declared and when, in case a store, a society or a collaborator asks.

Frequently asked questions

Does distributing through WBBT transfer my copyright?

No. Distribution does not by itself transfer ownership of a recording or a song. What you do grant is set out in the distribution agreement and in any separate collection option you switch on, such as the PPL UK box in the Release Wizard, so read both before you accept them.

Do I need to register my copyright before I release?

In the UK copyright arises automatically and there is no register to join, according to GOV.UK. WIPO notes that many countries offer voluntary registration, so check the rules where you expect to enforce your rights, and be wary of paid services that promise to register your work, because WIPO says unofficial ones give no protection. Registering a work is also not the same as registering a recording with a collecting society.

Can I release a track that uses a short sample?

Only with permission for the part you used. Length does not decide it, and the exceptions in UK law are narrow and judged case by case. Mark the track as containing samples in the Release Wizard and upload the clearance papers with the release.

What if a collaborator never signed anything?

Then ownership and shares rest on whatever you can show about who did what, which is a weak position. Agree the splits now in writing, ask each person to confirm them, and keep the message thread with the release records.

Who should I ask if the rules for my case are unclear?

Ask WBBT support first about what a release needs, then take the legal question to a music lawyer or to the society that licenses the music involved. Support can tell you what the review looks for, but it cannot give legal advice.

Sources and next steps

These are the primary sources behind the points above. We opened each of them on 25 October 2026, and platform rules and laws change, so check the current version before you rely on one.

• Music Copyright Explained, a guide commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office and written by CMU (accessed 25 October 2026).
• How copyright protects your work and how long copyright lasts, GOV.UK (accessed 25 October 2026). Terms differ between songs and recordings, and older works can follow older rules.
• Exceptions to copyright, GOV.UK (accessed 25 October 2026).
• What Musicians Should Know about Copyright, US Copyright Office (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, US Copyright Office, Part 2 on copyrightability, January 2025 (accessed 25 October 2026).
• The rights PPL manages, PPL (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Qualify for Content ID, YouTube Help (accessed 25 October 2026).
• PRS and MCPS, PRS for Music (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Copyright, World Intellectual Property Organization (accessed 25 October 2026), for the international picture.

For the WBBT side, the FAQ has a section on rights and Content ID, and the pricing page shows which plans include Content ID, PPL support and sync licensing. When the paperwork is ready, submit your release, and write to [email protected] before you submit if a case does not fit the questions in the wizard.