"Prove You Have the Rights": Documentation Needed Upon Distributors' Request

It is never good to receive an email from the distributor, but especially when your release date is in just three days and they ask you for documentation to prove that you have rights to your music. The problem is that you do not know what exactly they mean by the term ‘documentation’.

However, I have enough experience of both having to provide documentation and helping other artists to figure out what they need, and I am going to share it. The good news is that it is almost always not as scary as it seems, because all you need to do in most cases is to send an actual proof of creation or license and then wait one week for approval.

First of all, let’s talk about why distributors ask for this, what needs to be in the document, and what common advice gives away.

Why Distributors Become So Strict With Their Verification Requirements?

Back in the days, a checkmark was enough to give away the rights of the ownership, and your track was distributed to Spotify. However, it is not the case anymore, and it has everything to do with numbers. Music Business Worldwide reported that during the twelve months ending September 2025, Spotify had deleted over 75 million spammy tracks, while rival platform Deezer reports that they are receiving over 30,000 fully AI generated tracks every single day. Fraudsters upload other people’s music, sped up remixes, and other kinds of filler to earn some royalties from the pool.

The response from platforms was that they started to rely heavily on their distributors. The company behind distribution for many labels, FUGA, puts it quite frankly in its compliance guide, that rights must be documented through contracts or license agreements, and mistake may lead to takedown, lawsuits or even account suspension. So when SoundCloud, DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby ask for rights documentation, they are doing it to protect themselves, because their automated system flagged something about your upload as risk factor.

Most common triggers include:

• Similar melody that matches something from the database;
• Name of a featured artist that matches the name of an established act;
• Album cover that looks stock or AI generated;
• Author of a song that is not you in metadata;
• Cover track without license attached;
• Brand new account that uploads suspiciously polished album.

Knowing the trigger may help you choose the right document, so make sure that you reread rejection email to understand what exactly it flags.

The Two Copyrights Issue Explained Once

Pretty much any rights request comes from the fact that recorded music contains two different copyrights. Composition is a piece of music itself – its melody, chord progressions, lyrics, etc. It is owned by the composer and the publishing company. Master is a specific recording of this piece of music. It is owned by whoever paid for or made it. You can be the full owner of one, but have no claim to the other.

That is why you can’t say “but I made it myself” when you distribute a cover. You own this master, yes. But you do not own the composition, and that is the right you need to prove in this case. That is also the reason why sampling is such a hassle – because a sample can infringe on the rights both of the original master and of the composition. All the documents described below are here to prove either of these two rights, and it is half of the problem solved already.

Scenario One: The Music is Completely Yours

The most frustrating, but also the simplest situation, because proving you have the rights to your own music feels very insulting. However, here you need to submit one of these:

According to the SoundCloud’s help page on how to deal with distribution rejections, their matching system sometimes flags original tracks because of similar melody or beat pattern, and the solution is to resubmit with proof of creation attached as license documentation.

Here’s what I send when this happens to me, in rough order of persuasive power.

Copyright registration certificate. To register a copyright online in the USA you need to pay $45 for single work of a single author and $65 for standard application (and a special $65 group registration if it is a full album of musical works). Just a note, a March 2026 Federal Register proposal wants to increase the price of the standard application from $65 to $85. So if you were postponing copyright registration for some time, now is a perfect moment. Nothing closes an ownership discussion faster than a government certificate with your name on it.

DAW session files or screenshots. A screenshot of your Ableton, Logic or FL Studio project showing arrangement, track names and dates of file creation is surprisingly effective, because fraudster rip-offping songs from YouTube doesn’t have session files. If they want more, you need to export DAW project file listing with dates of file creation.

Working files dated. Voice memos of early demos, dated bounces, stems, text messages about the song and emails where you send your friend a rough mix of the song. Everything that proves that the song existed on your computer before it was uploaded.

One thing I’ll advise against: a well-known “poor man’s copyright” of mailing a copy of a song to yourself proves nothing. Actual registration is $45 and gives you legal standing, including eligibility for statutory damages if someone stole your work. This is the single greatest bargain in this whole article.

Scenario Two: You Have Used Beats, Loops, or Samples

This scenario happens to many artists, and here you may be hurt by misunderstanding what the document is needed for. An entertainment lawyer, Michael Musco, points an important thing in his articles about co-written music, and I really wish that every artist would tattoo it somewhere on visible place: receipt proves that money was paid, but it does not clarify if you bought a service, a license, an assignment or anything enforceable at all. Agreement about the payment clarifies that.

So here’s what you need to send, depending on the source.

Leased or purchased beats. Send the actual beat license PDF from BeatStars, Airbit, or the producer directly, not the PayPal receipt. Beat license should name you, beat itself, state that it is exclusive or non-exclusive, list platforms you are allowed to use this beat and maximum number of streams, and carry the producer’s name or signature. If you have only receipt and WAV file, you can ask producer to send you license document or at least a statement about the terms of sale.

Splice and other royalty free library. Luckily, Splice made an instrument exactly for that purpose. You need to visit Your Sounds section, select up to 25 samples used in your track and create a certified license with your legal and artist names on it. As noted in the licensing FAQ of Splice, it won’t prevent content recognition systems from flagging you, because dozens of artists use these loops legally, but it is exactly what you need to win the dispute. I create it for every release that uses Splice sounds and save with the project before any requests. Two minutes of administrative work, saved me twice already.

Samples from actual recordings. Here you need clearance from both the master owner (usually label) and composition owner (usually publishing company) in writing, where your work and the original work are both mentioned. There is no way around it, and no distributor will accept “it’s only two seconds” or “I changed the pitch”. No license means, that according to the rights verification page of SoundCloud, you may need to remove the sample and remake it with session musicians so there will be no master clearance needed.

One interesting thing to remember, if you use SoundCloud distribution, is that their rules for rights verification require you to skip YouTube Content ID, TikTok, and Meta services in such case, because only original or exclusive content can be sent there. Leaving this unchecked during submission may save you from a whole category of rejection. Other distributors use similar logic, even if it is not stated as explicitly.

Scenario Three: You Make a Cover Song

The majority of panic emails come from the fact that covers are distributed in the most inconsistent way by the distributors, and the rules are pretty annoying. The core of it is that you need a mechanical license, which is the license allowing you to reproduce and distribute someone else’s composition in your own recording. In the United States it works via compulsory licensing system, so you need to pay the statutory royalty, which is 12.7 cents per download copy for the song up to 5 minutes long according to the rate schedule provided by TuneLicensing.

Requirements of the major distributors regarding cover songs, taken from the useful comparison made by MasteringBOX in their distributing cover songs legally guide:

DistroKid has its own built-in cover program for $12 per year per song, and they handle the licensing process for you. It is a low-friction option, except that it covers US-style compulsory license, so any unusual arrangements and translations need separate permission.

TuneCore requires you to obtain a license before distribution and directs you to their Royalty Solutions partnership. They also mention that Apple and other stores reject soundalikes – cover versions that are made to imitate the original track.

CD Baby requires you to specify that this is a cover, input license details and restrict delivery to territories covered by the license. Territory is what trips a lot of people up – US compulsory license covers only US, so worldwide delivery is technically illegal.

As for independent licensing services, the price table on the webpage of Easy Song service (at the time I checked – $19.99 per song, with discount to $14.99) and Affordable Song Licensing ($13 per song) are very comparable, and the paperwork from either of these is accepted everywhere. One additional legal information, both will tell you about it, is that thanks to Music Modernization Act interactive streaming royalty is handled via the blanket license issued by Mechanical Licensing Collective, and this purchase covers downloads and physical copies. Distributor still wants you to show this license, because it proves that you have the rights and provides the information about rightsholders. Stores consider it a standard proof of cover song.

So, if you are asked to prove that you have rights for the cover song, you need to provide the document containing song title, authors of the song, your name, format and quantity of the songs licensed, and the date of this. If you used DistroKid’s cover flow, point at it. But you cannot provide nothing, and you won’t be able to argue, because “covers are legal” is only valid when the license is.

Scenario Four: You’re Distributing Someone Else’s Music

Perhaps you run a small label, or manage an artist, or you’re distributing songs of your band. Magic document that you need is the letter of authorization, sometimes called a distribution agreement or label waiver. As rejection help page of SoundCloud says, it may look as a label waiver or agreement, or a letter from the artist that confirms your authorization to distribute on their behalf.

A letter of authorization that will be accepted contains, at the least, the following things: full legal names of the rights owner and of you or your label, artist name, exact titles of the tracks and their ISRCs (if assigned), statement of authorization of the owner to distribute these recordings on digital platforms worldwide (or specified territories), the date, term of agreement if any, and signatures of both parties. Real signatures or e-signature, not the name typed in Comic Sans. I have one-page template of it, and I fill it out for every release, and I never had a refusal, as long as the specific recordings are mentioned.

If there is a contract between you and the rights holder (like label deal or license agreement), send the relevant part, not the whole contract. Distributor needs the clause granting the distribution rights and the signatures. Redact the financial information if you want, but they do not need it anyway.

Scenario Five: Collaborations and Features

When a track contains more than one author or a featured artist, distributors can sometimes ask for the proof of their authorization of distribution. The answer is usually a split sheet – a one-page agreement with song title, date, all contributors’ legal names, their percentages of composition ownership, affiliations with the PRO organizations and all the signatures. Split sheet’s purpose explained in this Songtrust article makes it quite clear: it is needed to confirm the rightsholders in case of dispute, so that PRO or publishing company could identify them and pay accordingly. And Soundcharts adds the scary detail: if one writer registers the song as 100% his and another one as 50%, PRO freezes all the royalties until the problem is sorted out.

Sign the split sheet the day your song is completed, while you still like each other. Seriously. Every bad story about the split dispute that I witnessed, had something in common – the paper was not signed until the song brought any earnings.

For a featured artist, you need a short statement signed by him, that he performed this song and agrees to distribution on your behalf. Two sentences and signature. For session musicians and vocalists, the work-for-hire clause in whatever agreement you signed with them covers it. If you did not sign an agreement and paid them money, get it signed immediately, because it is the type of gap that can be exploited in takedown claim later.

A Word About AI Generated Elements

The “how to deal” guide by Jack Righteous on the DistroKid rejections of AI tracks offers practical insight into the pitfalls: free-tier AI tools like Suno and Udio rarely give commercial rights for output, and hence content produced using such tools can be considered unlicensed by default, while mentioning the AI tool as the artist/writer disqualifies you from distribution altogether. In the case you were using a paid tool with commercial rights granted, your documentation is a copy of the tool terms/license agreement for the paid tier of the subscription and the active subscription proof during the creation process. Make sure you keep it safe together with the rest of your release documentation from the very start of your release preparation process. And if your tool had replicated some real artist’s voice, there is no paperwork you can present to prove otherwise, don’t even try to distribute it.

How to Actually Package and Send Your Documentation

I’ve seen legitimate rightsholders get stuck in the review process just because of sending too chaotic documentation. Here is the workflow that gets approvals moving faster.

Package all documentation you have into a single pdf file in the following order: cover note (1 paragraph only), from the most to the least authoritative documentation. Your cover note should look like this: “This release, [title] by [artist], UPC [number], includes [description: original composition / licensed beat/ licensed cover of [song] by [artists]]. Attached: mechanical license from Easy Song, dated [date], signed split sheet, dated [date], Splice licensed sample pack covering all samples used”. You are making your reviewer’s job here, and they will easily approve the documentation ticket you submitted.

Name your file properly, like artistname-releasetitle-rights-documentation.pdf. Reply to the same email thread/ticket where your request came from, NEVER in a new email, because support systems are designed to lose orphaned emails. Try to reply within 24 hours if you can; SoundCloud gives up to 3 to 5 business days to complete monetization review after you send the documentation, and others follow the same policy. But the clock starts to tick only when you reply.

And make sure you keep a dedicated rights folder per each release forever. My folders include project files, exported stems, all required licenses, split sheets, artwork sources with fonts and photo licenses if applicable, and screenshots of Terms of Service pages on the date of use (yes, this may seem paranoid). But if a platform changes its ToS, you would need to prove the version you followed back in the day.

Don’t Forget About Artwork

Here is one type of the documentation flag that surprises people: cover art. Distributors ask for proof of artwork rights as frequently as they ask for the proof of the musical rights, especially if the artwork looks like a stock image, contains a recognizable face or resembles existing album covers. In case you made the artwork yourself, your proof would be the source file, that is the Photoshop/Procreate/Canva project. If a designer has done the artwork, make sure you attach the invoice and the line confirming the transfer of the rights. Otherwise, design invoice is not different from beat receipt as far as proving rights goes. Stock licenses showing the commercial usage in your account are required if the cover uses stock imagery. And double-check that the license allows for merchandise style use – as many free-tier stock licenses don’t.

What NOT to Send

There are a few things that actively harm your case when you try to prove your rights. Screenshot of your own Spotify or YouTube page proves that music is already online, which is the very issue the documentation is requested about. Receipts as discussed above prove the payment, not the rights. Copyright notice typed by you, the little symbol with the artist name and year, costs nothing to forge and reviewers know it. Long emotionally-charged letters about how long you worked on this album will be skimmed if they will be read at all.

And the last but the most dangerous one: falsified documents. I’ve watched people openly asking in artist forums how to forge a rights document. And here I need to be absolutely clear with you. Distributors verify your documentation with the rightsholders and licensing services verify licenses they issued, and falsifying a license leads to rejection of the release AND account termination, removal of the catalog and blocking of earnings with your name in the industry’s fraud list. There are NO legal consequences if you lack the rights – you either get them or change the track, but never forge the papers.

When the Flag Is Just a Mistake

Sometimes you would do everything right and get a flag anyway because of the automated matching. A chord progression might resemble a hit, preset melody might appear in 200 songs, or someone else might fraudulently claim your track first. In this case reply with your creation documentation package from scenario 1, state the work is original and the match is a false positive and ask them to provide you with the specific track they believe to be conflicting. Naming the track forces a human to investigate it, and a human would be able to see that your 2019 dated project files precede the 2023 uploading of another track.

In case your distributor refuses to help, and there are some who do, politely yet firmly follow in the same ticket and reconsider whether this distributor is worth your next release. The industry’s dirty secret is that documentation checking quality differs a lot, and distributor who cannot give you the reason why the release is rejected, which sometimes happens, is not the distributor you would want your catalog to belong to. Sometimes the honest answer is rather unpleasant: stores may reject your release due to their own editorial discretion and will not give any explanation at all, and no documentation you can send would help. Rights documentation solves only rights-related issues.

What I’d Do This Week

If you learn anything from this article, form the habit that will make your documentation emails routine. For your next release: create certified licenses for any library samples, sign the split sheet, buy the mechanical license in case of the cover and collect the beat license PDF. Also, spend $45 and register your copyright while you are at it. Put all the documentation into a single folder named after your release. The next time a distributor or a platform asks you to prove your rights, your answer would be a single attached file and a two line email, sent no later than 10 minutes after you receive their email. The speed, not the document itself, will guarantee your release dates.

Sources

• Music Business Worldwide, Spotify Has Deleted 75m+ Tracks in Spammy AI Music Crackdown: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-has-deleted-75m-spammy-tracks-as-it-unveils-new-ai-music-policies/
• SoundCloud Help Center, Verify your Rights for Monetization and Distribution: https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/39687296360091-Verify-your-Rights-for-Monetization-Distribution
• SoundCloud Help Center, Distribution Rejections and How to Resolve Them: https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/48881707977627-Distribution-Rejections-How-to-Resolve-Them
• FUGA Knowledge Base, Best Preventative Practices for Labels and Distributors in Copyright Compliance: https://support.fuga.com/hc/en-us/articles/37451402845972-Best-Preventative-Practices-for-Labels-and-Distributors-in-Copyright-Compliance
• U.S. Copyright Office, Fees: https://www.copyright.gov/about/fees.html
• Federal Register, Copyright Office Fees: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/20/2026-05529/copyright-office-fees
• Splice, Generate a Certified License for Your Splice Samples: https://splice.com/blog/generate-certified-license/
• Splice Help Center, Splice Sounds Licensing FAQ: https://support.splice.com/en/articles/8652642-splice-sounds-licensing-faq
• MasteringBOX, How to Distribute Cover Songs Legally: What You Need to Know: https://www.masteringbox.com/learn/distribute-cover-songs
• Easy Song, How Our Prices Are Calculated: https://www.easysong.com/services/licensing/get-permission/cover-songs/pricing/how-prices-are-calculated.aspx
• Affordable Song Licensing, How Much Does a Compulsory Mechanical License Cost: https://support.affordablesonglicensing.com/hc/en-us/articles/7735123947156-How-much-does-a-compulsory-mechanical-license-cost-audio-only-cover-song
• TuneLicensing, Pricing: https://tunelicensing.com/site/page?name=pricing
• TuneCore, Cover Song Licensing: https://www.tunecore.com/cover-song-licensing
• Songtrust, How Split Sheets Work: https://blog.songtrust.com/how-split-sheets-work
• Soundcharts, What Is a Split Sheet: https://soundcharts.com/en/blog/what-is-split-sheet
• MUSCO SOUND, The Split Sheet Problem: Why Co-Written Music Becomes Impossible to License: https://www.michaelmusco.com/2026/06/the-split-sheet-problem.html
• Jack Righteous, Why DistroKid Rejected Your AI Track and What to Do Next: https://jackrighteous.com/en-us/blogs/ai-music-distribution-guide/why-distrokid-rejected-ai-music
• DistroKid Help Center, Handling a Rejected DistroKid Release: https://support.distrokid.com/hc/en-us/articles/10405555881619-Handling-a-Rejected-DistroKid-Release