My song has a “match” with another song. What do I do now?

When you upload your release to us, you might find that we’ll send it back to you with a link to another released track that matches yours. What does this mean? If your track has a match, that means that there are sonic elements that are identical on both tracks. Here are a number of reasons why your track has a match, and what the best course of action is for each case:

 

1. Your track uses sounds or loops from a sound pack or a loops website (such as Splice*, Looperman, etc.). Given that these sounds are more accessible, it’s likely that there’s another artist that found that same cool loop you found, and used it in their track before you did. You can still use it though! All you have to do is send us a purchase confirmation of the sample pack with your legal name on it. (*In the case of Splice, you can send us a receipt of your monthly membership.)

2. Your track uses an instrumental or “free beat” made by another producer or creator. It is likely that this creator will license their beats to many other artists. In this case, you must obtain a license to use this beat from the original creator. You can read more about free in this article.

3. Your track uses a sample of another track. This means that a portion of the sound recording of the first track was used in yours (i.e. a portion of “ Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” by ABBA sampled in “ Hung Up” by Madonna). In this case, this requires direct permission from the original owner of the material through a Master license.

4. Your track has an interpolation of another track. This means that a portion of the melody or lyrics of a first song was used in yours (i.e. Frank Ocean singing a line from “ Here, There, and Everywhere” by the Beatles in his song “ White Ferrari”). This also requires direct permission from the original owner of the material through a Master license.

 

For any of these cases, you must email support@trac.co for further review. If all the information sent is legitimate and certified, then your release will be cleared for approval and release. If you do not have permission to use this material, please do not resubmit. Streaming services will not accept releases that contain music not belonging or licensed to you.