Can I Release an AI Cover Song?

These days, AI versions of popular tracks spread rapidly, but most of them fly under the radar of the law. I’ve released AI covers of popular songs in the past, acquired all needed licenses, and saw the tracks of my friends disappear after assuming AI would give them an additional leeway. But it does not, and in some aspects, it may even tighten the legal situation.

Below is the short answer – yes, you can release an AI cover song legally, but this is only if two conditions are met. First of all, you should acquire the mechanical license for the song itself. And second of all, the vocals on the track have to be either your voice, a licensed AI voice or synthetic voice, as well as a human voice. Using the voice of a popular artist without their consent is outside of the scope of the cover licensing, but inside the framework of the right of publicity laws, which will lead to platform bans, takedowns and maybe even litigation. The rest of the guide will discuss this in details.

Just one more thing before we proceed. I’m a musician myself and have hands-on experience in dealing with these issues, not a lawyer. Consider this guide as tips from someone who has traveled that road already. Consult the actual music attorney before releasing anything commercial with money involved.

Definition of the Term and Its Implications

The phrase covers two distinct concepts, and their legal implication depends on which one you are doing.

First one is the use of AI as a tool to help create a cover song. You used an AI generator to come up with the instrumental background of the track, sang the vocal yourself and improved it with the help of AI, created a full instrumental arrangement and covered it with your own performance – all of it is considered a cover. Legal consequences are virtually nonexistent because there is nothing really new about that, and that is a good news, because the cover license system is as old as the hill and has survived the test of time.

Second one is an AI cover of the voice clone variety. You took a song or even your original track and used an AI voice replica of Ariana Grande, Freddie Mercury or Juice WRLD in it. This is the kind that goes viral in TikTok and it is also the kind that gets pulled from popular platforms and may be subject of litigation. The guide explaining the problems of AI covers posted by Jack Righteous touches upon the same thing again: the technology is new, but the legal consequences are not, and they catch a lot of people off guard.

Bear those two types of AI cover in mind as you continue reading. Most of the confusion is caused by mixing them.

Two Copyrights Underlying Each Recorded Song

Each and every song you have ever heard is covered by two completely separate copyrights, and each of them matters.

The first copyright is the copyright to the composition, meaning the actual song – its melody and lyrics –, usually owned by the songwriter or publisher of that song. The second one is the copyright to the sound recording itself, or the master, the particular performance of the song, usually belonging to a record company or the artist who released it.

When you create an AI cover of a song, you are using the composition but creating your own version. That’s why it is possible to do legally – you are not dealing with the original master recording. What you do have to do is to get permission to use the composition. This permission comes in form of the mechanical license, the license that allows reproducing and distributing of the other person’s composition in your own track.

That is the problem for a voice clone AI cover song, because if you fed the original recording to the AI tool to extract the stems and mimic the performance, you have implicated both the master and the composition in the licensing issue. According to the legal analysis of the matter posted on JustAnswer, AI cover can be liable for both the infringement of the composition and sound recording copyright, especially if it preserved the recognizable elements of the original beyond what is allowed by the compulsory license. In total, it means that you are looking at two possible liabilities.

The Compulsory Mechanical License, And Why AI Doesn’t Change It

Below is the part of the US law that makes cover songs possible. Section 115 of the Copyright Act creates the Compulsory mechanical license. Once the song was released commercially in the US, everyone can legally record and distribute the cover of it without asking the song writer’s permission, as long as they follow the process and pay the required royalty. Songwriter cannot refuse it by any means – this is why Whitney Houston could cover the Dolly Parton’s song and Johnny Cash recorded Nine Inch Nails.

The royalties are public and annual – as of January 1, 2026, the statutory mechanical rate is 13.1 cents per copy for physical distribution and permanent downloads, or 2.52 cents per minute for songs longer than five minutes. The breakdown says that it is the highest statutory rate in the US history, after a fifteen year period of 9.1 cents. As for the streaming, now 15.3% of the platform’s revenues in the US go to songwriters and publishers of the songs, handled through the Mechanical Licensing Collective of the platform, not individually by the creators anymore.

And now the sentence that answers half of the questions people send me: an AI cover still requires the same composition licensing, no matter how you created the cover. MusicProductionWiki gives a brief explanation of the matter: the involvement of the AI doesn’t change anything about the songwriter’s mechanical license. They wrote the song, and regardless of whether it was performed by a human vocalist or a neural network, they get paid. Those who claim that AI is license-free are being intentionally misleading, and following their instructions will result in takedown at best, and something much worse otherwise.

What the Compulsory License Does NOT Cover

The compulsory license is quite flexible, but has its edges, and AI technologies make it quite easy to glide along those edges unnoticeably.

• Song must be already commercially released in the US. You cannot use the compulsory license to release a song that hasn’t been released in the US yet or hasn’t been officially released at all. And, as you might guess, people try to create AI covers of those songs frequently.
• Melody, lyrics and fundamental nature of the song should be kept intact. DistroKid provides some guidance when it comes to uploading cover songs: the compulsory license applies only when the original lyrics, melody and title of the song remained unchanged. Otherwise, you created a derivative work, which requires direct permission from the publisher. AI technology tends to be creative, so pay attention.
• Parody doesn’t fall under the compulsory license at all. If you rewrite lyrics to mock the original song, that is a fair use case and should be decided in the court.
• Any samples kill your opportunity to use compulsory license and your song is most likely to be rejected by the distributor.

Voice Clones Are More Complex Than You Think

Even if you cleared the license properly and used the voice of a well-known singer in your AI cover song, you are not in a safe zone. The voice is covered by something called the right of publicity – the legal right of a person to control their own image, including name, picture and voice. It is separate from the copyright.

Tennessee was the first state to address the matter. Starting from July 1, 2024, the so-called ELVIS Act establishes voice of a person as a protected property right in Tennessee, defined in broad terms to include both the actual voice and its simulation. Violations of the law can be prosecuted as a Class A misdemeanor and bring up to 11 months and 29 days in jail plus a fine of up to $2,500.

State after the state followed Tennessee’s steps, with an ever-growing list of jurisdictions providing protection for AI voice replicas. The NO FAKES Act at federal level, which would protect a person against creation of any unauthorized digital replica of their voice and likeness, hasn’t been adopted yet, but the tendency is obvious: voice cloning is becoming a risk in more and more locations.

So my blunt conclusion is that an AI cover sung in your own voice, or a licensed synthetic voice is the legal path to the release that can be easily solved. AI cover sung in Drake’s voice is a minefield that can be solved in no way.

A Cautionary Tale Everyone Should Know

For the real-life example, look at April 2023. Anonymous creator has uploaded Heart on My Sleeve, the track with the AI-generated vocals imitating Drake and The Weeknd’s voice. And that song became viral, with millions of plays before the Universal Music Group requested its removal from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and other popular platforms. That song wasn’t even the cover, it was the original song, so there were no songwriters to infringe. The voice cloning alone was enough to remove it. Later it turned out that those artists weren’t even asked for permission to use their voices, and in order to qualify for Grammys, a version without voice cloning had to be uploaded. If such a successful and viral track couldn’t survive the cloning, your AI cover definitely can’t.

That incident changed the entire industry stance toward AI voice clones. Every move of platforms from this moment is based on it.

What the Platforms Do Now

Spotify announced the drastic changes in the policy enforcement by September 25, 2025, after the removal of over 75 million spammy tracks in the last year. This is not an adjustment, it is a complete purge.

There are three important changes that influence AI covers in particular. First, a policy of impersonation: vocal impersonation is permitted only with the artist’s consent, effectively banning unauthorized clone covers. Second, the introduction of a spam filter that targets mass uploads, duplicates and artificially shortened tracks. Third, disclosure of the AI use through the DDEX standard, so credits will be telling if there was AI involved in generating vocals, instrumentation or production. The main emphasis of the policy is made on the fight with bad actors and support of legitimate use with full disclosure.

Other platforms also implemented similar policy. For instance, Deezer has the AI detection, reporting tens of thousands of fully AI-generated tracks daily. YouTube has the removal policy and privacy claims for the unauthorized voice clones. Age of silent submission of the clone covers onto the streaming and waiting to see if someone would notice it is over.

How To Clear the License in Practice

Enough of the theory. Let’s take a look on the practical process, with real numbers.

Independent artists use their distributors for obtaining mechanical licenses, and many of them provide it as a part of the process of uploading. One of the popular choices is DistroKid. You’ll need a subscription – the base plan costs around $24.99 per year, and then the cost of the license is around $12 per year per cover song, obtained through Harry Fox Agency. Important thing to note: license renews annually as long as the cover is online, and there are estimations that renewal price is near to double the price for the first year. Plan for it, otherwise your entire catalog will vanish once the payment stops. Also, the license approval can take up to 14 business days, so don’t schedule a release date if you have less time.

Alternatively, CD Baby and TuneCore offer the same licensing via Harry Fox Agency during the upload process. If you want to license separately from the distribution process, Easy Song can license the mechanical license for you at $16.99 per format per song, plus royalties, and will find the rights holders for you.

Also keep in mind the special case of the video platforms. YouTube requires a synchronization license to put the music over the video, and no compulsory licensing exists for it. In practice, YouTube uses Content ID to claim ad revenue from the video, but doesn’t allow monetization of that content, reserving the right to pursue the harsher measures.

Can You Copyright Your Creation

There is one more surprise. Suppose that you created your AI cover, cleared the license properly and it becomes viral. Do you have the copyright to it?

Not necessarily. Position of the US Copyright Office regarding the works created without human involvement – as of 2025 and 2026 – is that they cannot be copyrighted at all. So, if the song was fully generated with AI and it was machine-generated, you may have no registration of the copyright at all. And when your AI cover becomes popular and others re-upload it, you have little to stop them.

There is a solution – involve human participation into the creation process. Sing the vocal track yourself, perform parts, do your arrangement and editing with intention. Human-directed creation, assisted with AI will be much more likely to be registrable. And, additionally, tracks with human involvement tend to sound better – AI is not perfect and still smears transients and performs poorly on the high-end monitors.

Also, be careful with the terms of your generation tool. For instance, Suno allows commercial use of the output in paid subscriptions and prohibits copyrighted lyrics in the prompts – which is why you cannot type lyrics of the popular song into the prompt and call it AI cover.

Decision Process, Or The Questions You’ll Ask Yourself

If you approached me after a show and wanted to know whether you can release your AI cover, I’d guide you with the set of questions in this order.

Whose voice is on the track? If it’s your voice or any other AI-generated voice you are allowed to use commercially, continue. If it’s the voice of a popular artist and you didn’t have their written consent, your work is finished – the ELVIS Act, statewide right of publicity and impersonation policies of Spotify forbid that in a number of ways.

Has the original song been released commercially in the US? If it was, you have access to the compulsory license. If the song is unreleased, leaked or it is fan-made demo, you will need to get the direct permission which is unlikely to be granted.

Have you kept the melody, lyrics and the title of the original fundamentally the same? If you did, it’s a cover. If you rewritten lyrics, translated it or altered the song significantly, you created a derivative work that will require the direct permission from the publisher.

Is there any audio on the track that you don’t own? Stem tracks from the original, samples from the movie or another song, or anything else? Any yes means that you have to abandon the compulsory license approach, and will be rejected by the distributors.

Are you ready to pay for the license? Roughly $12 per year per song via DistroKid plus subscription cost, or one-time payment through other service like Easy Song. Small money, but it has to be paid every year as long as you want to keep the cover song online.

If you got five clean answers – you are ready to release your legally licensed AI cover song. Otherwise, you have to solve the problems before releasing it.

My Recommended Workflow, Start To End

Below is the workflow that I use myself and recommend – refined on the basis of my own experience.

1. Choose the song and check if it has been commercially released in the US. It can be verified with the help of the Spotify.
2. Create your cover. You can use AI as much as you want – generate the instrumental background, use the AI to assist the arrangement process and improve vocal takes. Sing the vocal track yourself or use any licensed AI voice. Make sure to preserve the melody and lyrics of the original song, don’t let the AI change it.
3. Add human contribution into the process. Perform something, make your arrangements with intention, edit and mix yourself or hire a mixer. This will not only improve the quality of the track, but also strengthen your copyright to it.
4. Upload it with the help of your distributor, having an option to license covers. Mark it as a cover, put the original songwriter’s credits correctly and pay the cover licensing fee. Mislabeling covers as original to skip the fee is detected by distributors and pursued by publishers – and if you get caught, expect removal of the song and maybe even ban of the whole account.
5. Add the information about AI usage according to the DDEX standard into the release metadata. The company has been clear that disclosure ensures the responsible use of artificial intelligence stays on the right side of law, and being stealth does you no favors.
6. Wait until the licensing period expires, roughly two weeks, then release. Document everything—licensing proof, sessions, tools subscriptions. In case of any disputes, a folder with receipts fastens them.

What about outside the US and what about TikTok

While the explanation relies heavily on US law due to the history of the compulsory licensing, it should be noted that music distributors promote music around the world, hence the knowledge of some specifics is necessary.

Good news: while releasing music worldwide via DistroKid, CD Baby or TuneCore, international mechanical royalties get collected and paid automatically, as long as you don’t need to negotiate them country by country. The bad news: territories vary and, for instance, some distributors allow streaming cover releases in certain countries without offering downloads in them. If the particular territory is important, it’s better to contact the distributor first.

TikTok and Instagram Reels are part of a completely different universe. Both have blanket licenses signed with publishers covering user-generated content, which is why covering songs in TikToks doesn’t lead to any troubles for the person who created the video. However, these licenses cover only casual videos uploaded within the apps, and thus, even if the cover goes viral, it still requires a full mechanical license before being uploaded to Spotify. Voice clone cover is not protected by these blanket licenses either because the problem there is voice, not the song.

Reality Check: Honesty is Key

While providing you with the instructions, I would like to offer you an honest reality check as well.

First, you shouldn’t expect a big profit from covers made with AI. Cover royalties are divided between the original song writer, streaming pays as much as it pays and novelty of the AI cover creation isn’t popular among listeners anymore. Do it for the craft, your catalog and some search traffic using a beloved song’s title, but not for money.

Second, voice clone business on TikTok isn’t viable anymore. Those channels are allowed to exist due to platform’s tolerances which are lowering every month, they can’t distribute to streaming services, they can’t copyright anything, and legal problems get bigger as more ELVIS-style acts pass. Every month it gets riskier. Meanwhile, the safe and legal way—mechanical license, your own voice, honest disclosure—works like a charm for a hundred years already.

Third, this field of law is moving too quickly, hence some of the information provided will become outdated sooner or later. NO FAKES Act may pass. Platform policies changed in the time I was doing the research, hence before any important release it’s better to check your distributor’s current cover and AI policies, as they can change silently.

And finally, if you do just one thing this week, make it this one: select one song that you love, go through the list of the questions, and publish AI cover through the mechanical license channel. Once you do it, the process turns into a simple fifteen-minutes checklist for future cover songs. The creators that get burned by the law didn’t learn this pipeline exists. You learned it.

Sources

• Jack Righteous, AI Covers Are Going Viral But The Legal Trap Is Real: https://jackrighteous.com/en-us/blogs/music-creation-process-guide/ai-covers-are-going-viral-but-the-legal-trap-is-real
• JustAnswer, AI Music Copyright Issues: Expert Q&A on Legal Rights: https://www.justanswer.com/intellectual-property-law/tim0j-ai-music-copyright-recording-rights.html
• MusicProductionWiki, How to Legally Release a Cover Song: https://musicproductionwiki.com/articles/how-to-release-a-cover-song
• Royalty Solutions Corp, 2026 Mechanical Royalty Rate: CRB Raises Statutory Rate to 13.1 Cents: https://www.royaltysolutionscorp.com/blog/2026-mechanical-royalty-rate-increase
• DistroKid Help Center, Uploading Cover Songs to DistroKid: https://support.distrokid.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013648953-Uploading-Cover-Songs-to-DistroKid
• ALERA, DistroKid Pricing 2026: Every Plan, Fee and Hidden Cost Explained: https://www.alera.fm/blog/distrokid-pricing-2026-every-plan-fee-hidden-cost
• The Vocal Market, Mechanical Licensing for Cover Songs: Everything You Need to Know: https://thevocalmarket.com/blogs/how-to/mechanical-licensing-cover-songs
• Holland and Knight, First-of-Its-Kind AI Law Addresses Deep Fakes and Voice Clones: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/04/first-of-its-kind-ai-law-addresses-deep-fakes-and-voice-clones
• Recording Law, Deepfake and AI Voice Cloning Laws by State: https://www.recordinglaw.com/us-laws/deepfake-laws/
• Music Business Worldwide, Spotify Has Deleted 75m+ Spammy Tracks as It Unveils New AI Music Policies: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/spotify-has-deleted-75m-spammy-tracks-as-it-unveils-new-ai-music-policies/
• Music Business Worldwide, AI Fake Drake Track Deleted on Spotify, YouTube, TikTok After Universal Music Group Copyright Claim: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/ai-fake-drake-track-deleted-on-spotify-youtube-tiktok-millions-of-plays/
• Billboard, Ghostwriter: Heart on My Sleeve Artist Talks Drake AI: https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/ghostwriter-heart-on-my-sleeve-drake-ai-grammy-exclusive-interview-1235434099/
• iMusician, Spotify AI Policy in 2025: Key Updates for Artist Protection and Transparency: https://imusician.pro/en/resources/blog/spotify-ai-policy-in-2025-artist-protection-transparency
• ONCE Blog, AI Music Copyright: What You Can and Can’t Release: https://once.app/blog/ai-music-copyright-what-you-can-release
• Forbes, Spotify Tightens AI Policy and Trims Catalog: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billrosenblatt/2025/09/26/spotify-tightens-ai-policy-and-trims-catalog/