Covers need a license. This is established in copyright law. There is no fair use defense for this. It makes no difference that a person is playing covers for e

Covers need a license. This is established in copyright law. There is no fair use defense for this. It makes no difference that a person is playing covers for educational or non-profit purposes. Doing cover songs for free still requires a license. A person needs a mechanical license for audio distribution, whether it be physical or digital, and a synchronization license if there is video distribution. Most established streaming sites already have a synchronization license that covers (pun intended) covers, whereas the site will divert ad revenue. However, it is up to the performer to make sure a synchronization license is available from the site for all the songs they will be covering. Some publishers or copyright holders refuse to issue synchronization licenses as there isn't an obligation and there isn't a fixed rate, each license is negotiated separately. The current mechanical rate is $0.091 for songs five minutes or less and $0.0175 per minute or fraction thereof for songs over five minutes. This rate is set by the Copyright Royalty Board, part of the Library of Congress, and for United States territories only.