How to Check Whether a Song Has Been Recorded Before You Buy an Exclusive

Happy Halloween. Let's talk about ghosts. In a release plan, a ghost is an earlier recording of your song: a version that is already out there, quietly collecting listeners.

Earlier recordings are normal, and finding one is not a reason to walk away. But an exclusive is meant to give you a quiet window, so it is worth fifteen minutes to see what is already in the room. Here is a simple check, and an honest note about what it can't show.

What an exclusive does and doesn't stop

While a song is under an active exclusive, nobody else can license it until the term ends. Licenses granted before it began stay in place, and Starchild licenses are perpetual. So an exclusive protects you from new versions. It can't remove versions that already exist, or ones an earlier licensee has not released yet.

Our guide to what an exclusive can and can't promise covers the details, and this piece for earlier licensees shows the other side.

Step 1: search the title with the writer's name

Start on the streaming services and YouTube. Type the title and the writer's name, as shown on the song page. If you find a match, open it, read the credits and listen to the first verse. If the words and melody match, it is the same song.

Do not trust a title alone. The U.S. Copyright Office states plainly that "Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases," so different songs can share a title. And do not read too much into a missing credit. Spotify says credits "come directly from labels and artist distributors," so they can be incomplete or spelled differently.

Step 2: search a line of the lyrics

Pick one distinctive line and search it in quotation marks, on the web and on each service. This finds versions released under another title, and it separates your song from others with the same name. It is the same habit as Starchild's own search, which understands a lyric line, a title with typos and a writer's name.

Step 3: see whether Spotify shows covers

Spotify announced SongDNA in November 2025, and later marked it live in beta. Spotify describes it as an interactive view that maps connections between songs, "showing collaborators, samples, and covers all in one place," and says Premium listeners see it in the Now Playing view. If you have it, open it on any recording you find. If you don't, skip this step.

Step 4: look the song up in the rights databases

Two free databases show how a song is registered. They list the song, not every recording of it, but they help you confirm you have found the same song.

• The MLC's Public Work Search lets anyone "view musical work ownership information on more than 55 million songs in The MLC's database, free of charge." Search by work title and open the work to see its details, including publisher information.
• Songview was launched by ASCAP and BMI in December 2020. In September 2025 the four major U.S. performing rights organizations announced it would add data from GMR and SESAC. It is free to the public on the ASCAP and BMI websites, and it shows songwriters, publishers, performers, alternate titles and ISWC and IPI codes.

Two cautions. The MLC's terms say its database is provided on an "as is" basis with no warranty on accuracy or completeness, and a song nobody has registered will not appear at all. And the codes can confuse. The MLC explains that an ISWC identifies a musical work, the song itself, while an ISRC is assigned to "each version of a recording." One song can have many recordings.

What a clean search can't show

If you find nothing, you know nothing is out yet. You don't know that nothing is coming. An earlier licensee may have a recording in progress, and their perpetual license lets them release it at any time, including during your term. An exclusive can't change that.

You also can't see who else holds a license. So plan around the parts you control. Release soon after you license. Build your story on your voice, your arrangement and the writer's credit, not on being the only version. Our piece on how exclusivity shapes a song's story and marketing shows how to do that with honest claims.

What you found also decides what you can say. If your search turns up no other version, "written by" and "my recording of" are safe phrases in a caption. "The only version in the world" is not, because you can't see every license.

If you find one

• Is it the same song? Compare the lyrics and the writer credits before you worry.
• Is it the writer's own release? A songwriter putting out their own song is normal.
• Is it close to what you would make? If the style, the voice and the key are different, yours is a different record. If it is nearly identical, try another style. On Starchild you can hear a song in other styles and voices before you license it, and change the key and tempo live.
• Does the exclusive still pay off? It protects the window in which you promote. That is still worth having, but it is worth less if your plan depends on being first.

Keep a record

Save the date of your search and the links you found. Run the same search again on release day. It takes five minutes, and it lets you write your captions without guessing.

Songwriters run the same check from the other side, as described in how to find out when an artist has released your licensed song. And once your term is under way, our plan for your first 30 days shows what to do next.

Sources

• U.S. Copyright Office: How do I copyright a name, title, slogan, or logo?
• Spotify for Artists: Spotlighting the people, connections, and stories behind your music
• The MLC: Tools
• The MLC Help Center: How can I find publisher information for a song registered with The MLC?
• The MLC: Musical Works Database Terms of Use
• The MLC: Know Your Identifiers
• Music Business Worldwide: SESAC and GMR join ASCAP and BMI's Songview copyright database