How can Global Music Services help me?

Global Music Services represents suppliers of the largest libraries and the highest quality rerecorded hits in the world. We feature over 35,000 top-quality, affordable re-recorded hits. Our talented musicians emulate the sounds and styles of top recording artists throughout the world, providing a cost-effective alternative for music tracks for movies, advertising, radio, TV, cell-phones, PDA's, satellite radio, sound clips contained in toys, videogames, karaoke and more.

If the scope of your project does not require the original artist's recording, we can save you significant time, money and aggravation compared to negotiating with the original record label. Global Music Services works hard to keep your budget, timeframe and vision in harmony.

What are the licensing requirements of a re-recorded version?

For the uninitiated to the music copyright industry the concept at first is somewhat confusing. When you hear a song you most likely consider it one entity. However, most consumers don't understand that there are two parts to a song: 1) the actual sound recording and, 2) the underlying words and music. The sound recording is a capture of a performance whether it's a studio recording or a live performance. In each instance the work can be copyrighted as a sound recording of that performance. The second part is the words and music that the performance was based on. Among laymen, there is a general misunderstanding of the roles of the record industry and music publishing industry in terms of licensing and who owns or controls what part of the song. They perform two separate functions and control different aspects in the song you are hearing. Music publishers own copyrights to the words and music to a composition (song) – the "circle C" or © copyright. The record labels own the sound recording by an artist where an artist creates an artistic interpretation of the words and music and records that interpretation; this is the "circle P" orcopyright. The songwriter may or may not be the artist that made the song popular. The artist may or may not have written the song. There are great songwriters who never become famous recording artists. There are famous recording artists that have never written a song. Then there are many famous songwriters/recording artists who do both.

In examining the two "copyright partners" in a sound recording, there is the record label AND the music publisher. For example, the "Big 4" "major labels" as they are known, (Warner, EMI, Sony/BMG and Universal) have both a record division and a music publishing division. The major record labels own the rights to the sound recordings. They control the sound recording of the artist's rendition of a song. The music publisher on the other hand controls the song composition itself – the words and music. For example, Sony Records is a different division than Sony Music Publishing.

What do Britney and Mick have in common?

A real world example is Britney Spears who has done a remake of the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards' owned and controlled composition of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". In this case Britney has licensed from the music publisher (ABKCO Music) the rights to record her own artistic interpretation or version of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." She and her record company, Jive Records, now own her artistic interpretation or version of the composition in the sound recording while Mick Jagger and Keith Richards still own the composition's words and music. They collect royalties every time Britney's song is played or performed. In addition, these two songwriters happen to have their own band called the Rolling Stones. They own the words and music and in addition they and their record label also own their own sound recording of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction".

Referring to our example, Britney's record label, Jive, does not own this particular music publisher and has to obtain clearance from the music publisher for Britney/Jive Records to record its version of the composition "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". Now the "labels" that Global Music Services represents contact the same music publisher that Britney contacted and get the same clearance for its artistic interpretation or version of the composition. In this case a version that was made "in the style of" the Rolling Stones or Britney Spears. Our suppliers, in essence, are record labels - a record label specializing in re-records and karaoke compositions. We obtain the same music publishing rights that Britney would get and we both go into the recording studio. We both artistically interpret our respective "words and music" clearances obtained from the music publisher and now have created our own copyright of a sound recording based upon the song composition owned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Mick and Keith, in turn, will get compensated for each sale for their ownership of the "words and music" in the sound recording. Britney Spears and our "labels" enjoy revenue from the copyright ownership of the sound recording based upon the composition we both have licensed from the Music Publisher that administers for Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

What is your responsibility?

Global Music Services cannot grant a publishing license. We do not own the publishing rights, nor do our suppliers. We administer or own only the sound recording rights. The music publisher will grant the license to you, the end user, based on your specific use of their composition. After you have licensed a sound recording from Global Music Services, you must contact the music publisher to obtain licensing for your specific use of the composition. The publisher will ask for information similar to the information that we are requesting in our "Pricing" page.