Who Owns Rights To He Ll Never Love You Like I Can Lyrics?

I was scrolling through a playlist and saw this question pop in my head—who actually controls the words to 'He'll Never Love You Like I Can'? My gut reaction is to separate the kinds of rights: the lyric text is part of the composition copyright (owned by the songwriter(s) and their publishers), while the recorded track is a different right owned by the label or whoever funded the recording. That means if you're trying to quote the lyrics publicly or put them on a website, you need permission from the publisher, not necessarily the label.

A quick way I find these details is by searching the major performing rights organizations. Type the song title into ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC repertories and see which writers and publishers are listed. If that fails, MusicBrainz or Discogs entries for the release often include writer credits; I’ve even used the U.S. Copyright Office's public catalog to find registrations when the PRO searches turn up ambiguous results.

If you're after permission to use the lyrics, look for the publisher name and reach out — publishers handle print and sync licensing and can tell you if someone else administers the rights. For online lyric display, many sites license through LyricFind or Musixmatch, so seeing which service a site uses can provide clues. If you want, tell me which artist or version you mean and I’ll help narrow down the lookup steps — it’s surprisingly fun to trace the chain of rights.

If you've ever tried to track down who owns the words to a song, you're already in the right mindset — it's usually a publishing question more than a simple “who holds the file.” For the line you'd typed, which I assume refers to the song 'He'll Never Love You Like I Can', the short reality is that the lyrics (the composition) are owned by the songwriters and the music publisher(s) who administer those songwriters' catalogs. The recorded performance (the master) is usually owned separately by the record label or the artist if they self-released. That split is important depending on whether you want to reproduce lyrics, print them, or sync them to video.

When I want to be certain, I go hunting through a few practical sources: check the song title and artist first (sometimes there are multiple songs with very similar titles). Then poke around PRO repertories like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC (or PRS in the UK) to see the registered songwriters and publishers. MusicBrainz and Discogs often list writing credits, and the U.S. Copyright Office database can show who registered the composition. If a website is displaying the lyrics legally, chances are they're licensed through services like LyricFind or Musixmatch — those platforms link back to publishers too. Once you find the publisher name, you can contact them for permission to reproduce or license the lyrics, or look up mechanical/sync rights through agencies like the Harry Fox Agency or directly through the publisher.

I get a little giddy doing this detective work, but it's the clearest path: identify the exact song, find songwriter/publisher info via PROs and registries, then contact the publisher for permissions. If you want, tell me the exact artist you have in mind and I'll walk through a more targeted check with what to search for next.

I usually keep it simple: lyrics belong to the composers and their publishing companies, not automatically to whoever recorded the song. So for 'He'll Never Love You Like I Can', the owners of the words are whoever wrote the song and the publishers listed on PRO databases (ASCAP/BMI/SESAC) or in the copyright registration. The recorded performance rights are a separate thing held by the label or the recording artist, so if you need to reproduce lyrics or use them in a project, contact the publisher for a license. If you want, tell me the exact artist or a line of the song and I’ll suggest the best database to check — I enjoy following those breadcrumbs.