What Rights Do You Actually Get When You License a Song?

Licensing sounds like paperwork, but what you're really buying is a bundle of specific permissions. Knowing exactly what's in the bundle — and what isn't — is the difference between releasing with confidence and wondering whether you're allowed to pitch your single to a playlist. Here's the bundle, item by item.

The core grant: record and release your version

Every Starchild song license starts with the same foundation: the right to record your own version of the song and release it as your single. You choose the arrangement, the key, the tempo, the production. The recording you make is yours — you're the performing artist on it, and you own that master. That means you can distribute it through any distributor, collect streaming revenue, sell it, put it in your live set, and promote it as your release.

What stays with the songwriter

The composition — the melody and lyrics as written — remains the songwriter's property. You license it; you don't buy it. In practice this means you credit the original writers as writers (exactly as they appear on your license certificate), and the writers continue to earn from the song across every use of it. This is the same structure every professional cover and outside-song release uses: Whitney Houston didn't write "I Will Always Love You" — Dolly Parton did, and both careers won.

What each license tier adds

• Song License ($30) — the core grant: record and release your own version
• Song + AI Personalization ($40) — adds a production tailored toward your style
• Song + Instrumental ($50) — adds the full instrumental mix to record over
• Personalized Productions ($60) — the song rendered in your chosen style, optionally shaped around your voice
• Stems Packages ($295–$895) — every element of the production separated for full studio control
• Exclusive License ($60–$150) — the song leaves the open marketplace for your 3, 6, or 12-month term
• Royalty-Free buyout ($99, where offered) — perpetual use with no ongoing royalty considerations

Exclusivity: the right to be the only one

A standard license is non-exclusive — other artists may license the same song, though in practice licensees are usually in different scenes and countries. An exclusive license adds a different kind of right: the song leaves the open marketplace entirely for your term. Nobody else can license it while you hold it. That's the right you want when the song anchors a real investment — a promoted single, a campaign, a signature release.

The proof: your license certificate

Every purchase generates a license certificate — a document naming the song, its writers and publishers with their PRO and IPI registrations, you as the licensee, the package, the term, and the order reference. When a distributor, label, or platform asks whether you have the rights, that document is the answer.

What a license doesn't cover

Honesty matters here: a song license is not a trademark on the title, not ownership of the composition, and not permission to claim you wrote the song. It also doesn't transfer other artists' recordings to you — only the right to make your own. If you want perpetual, royalty-clear use, that's what the royalty-free buyout tier exists for; if you want the market to yourself, that's exclusivity. Match the right to the plan, and the plan gets simpler.

Sources

• U.S. Copyright Office — Circular 73: Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords
• ASCAP — Common Licensing Terms Defined
• ASCAP — Royalties and Payment