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Music vocabulary · The Music Industry

Mechanical licence

Meaning in music, with examples

nounCommon term

In music, mechanical licence means: Permission covering specified reproduction and distribution of a musical composition in recordings, distinct from permission to use an existing sound recording.

In Turkish: mekanik lisans, mekanik çoğaltma izni

How it is used

Used in music publishing and release administration; US spelling is mechanical license. The term concerns the composition, while the exact scope depends on the licence and territory.

Example sentences

  1. The release folder contains a mechanical licence for the composition used in our new cover recording.

    The document concerns reproducing the song in the new recording, not copying the earlier artist's audio.

  2. The administrator compared the mechanical licence details with the planned release information.

    The check compares the described use with the information written in the permission document.

Common collocations

  • mechanical licence agreement
  • mechanical licence terms
  • mechanical licence request
  • music publishingThe business of managing songs as compositions: registering them, licensing them, collecting the royalties they earn and finding new uses for them, such as in films and adverts.
  • coverA new performance or recording of a song that was first released by another artist, often in a different style or arrangement.
  • copyrightThe legal right that protects original creative work and lets its owners decide how it is copied, performed, recorded, adapted or shared.

More terms: The Music Industry

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