The five rights
For a musical composition, the Copyright Office’s chart lists five exclusive rights. A sound recording does not receive the same five.
What the composition’s owner controls
Circular 56A asks, for a musical composition, whether the owner has the exclusive right to do each of these, and answers yes to all five: reproduce the work; prepare derivative works; distribute copies or phonorecords to the public by sale or other transfer, or by rental, lease, or lending; perform the work publicly; display the work publicly. Circular 50 describes the same set: make copies, prepare derivative works, sell or distribute copies, and perform or display the work publicly. The owner may authorize other people to do these things, subject to limits in the statute.
Those five are the rights. A license is permission to use one or more of them. Words you will hear in a publishing office, such as mechanical, performance, sync, and print, are names for licenses. They are not a second list of five rights in the Copyright Act. The licenses chapter says what each name is asking for.
The recording’s column is different
On the same chart, a sound recording owner can reproduce, prepare derivatives, and distribute. The public performance right is only by means of a digital audio transmission. There is no public display right. Circular 1 lists that digital-transmission performance as its own exclusive right, for sound recordings. It is not a sixth right of the song, and it is not one of the composition’s five.
A remix or a video that uses the recording is the kind of derivative the Office names for the sound recording. A new arrangement can be a derivative of the composition. Clearing one does not clear the other.
Sources checked 15 October 2026
If a society has changed a fee or a rule since these pages were read, the society’s page is the one to follow. This is not legal advice.
Tools that sit next to this
Slipstream, SourceAudio, Cyanite, and Harmix help someone find or deliver music for a use, especially picture. Finding a track is not a license, and it does not exercise any of the five rights.
Search and license music for social video and picture, with AI search on the platform. Plans are paid, including an enterprise tier.
Host a catalog and use its AI tools for playlisting, metadata, and finding uses. The public offer is a free trial, then a paid plan.
Tag a catalog and search it by similarity or plain language, including for sync. A small free monthly upload exists for artists; larger catalogs are priced.
Search a production or sync catalog with text, a video, a reference track, or a lyric idea. The site offers a try-it path rather than a public free plan.