Charlotte Rezak
The 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics delivered several viral figure skating music moments. Alysa Liu’s popularity sent “Stateside” by PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson and “MacArthur Park” by Donna Summer soaring up the charts, with the latter seeing a 976% increase in streams. Tomás-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté skated to the Minions theme, while Niina Petrõkina danced to “Cell Block Tango” featuring Ilia Malinin and other famous male skaters. Music is central to a figure skater’s expression and creativity, and can make or break a career-defining routine. But this year’s Olympics showed that music can also provide one of the most unexpected challenges for Olympic hopefuls.
Until 2014, figure skaters avoided copyright issues entirely, because songs with lyrics were forbidden and most of their music was either public domain or much easier to license. Now that the International Skating Union has allowed music with lyrics, skaters themselves have become responsible for getting their music licensed for performance.
In general, any song will have two separate copyrights, usually owned by different parties. First, the publishing rights cover the melody and lyrics of the musical composition, often held by the songwriters. Second, the master rights cover exclusive uses of the specific sound recording, and are usually owned by the record label.
Skaters intending to use a particular song will first have to get a license to use the specific song recording from the owner of the masters. Since figure skating dances count as “dramatic public performances,” they also require authorization from the owners of the musical composition, who hold the exclusive rights to perform the work. Blanket licenses to play a song in a large venue, or use it in “nondramatic” public performances (i.e. background music in a restaurant or standard concert) are easily granted to venues, but dramatic public performances come with a more difficult burden. Finally, all these permissions do not automatically cover media distribution, and separate broadcast and transmission rights will need to be obtained so that every country’s media station will have the rights to air each routine.
To summarize, three separate categories of music licenses are needed: (1) a composition license to perform the underlying musical work, (2) a master license to use the specific recording, and (3) the broadcast rights allowing networks to air the routine worldwide. Especially at international events like the Olympics, these licenses are handled separately and any one license does not automatically confer others. The consequences of unlicensed music can be severe (in the US, around $150,000 per infringement), and even the shortest excerpts of music require licenses. Third-party licensing companies like ClicknClear exist to facilitate skaters’ licensing, but the process is still often difficult.
Several athletes in Milan-Cortina faced these licensing hurdles firsthand. Russian skater Petr Gumennik, competing as a neutral athlete, was forced to rework the short program he’d been skating to all season after failing to secure his needed licenses. Spain’s Tomás-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté, whose Minions-themed program had gone viral earlier in the season, learned shortly before the games that Universal Studios was poised to block the routine due to copyright issues with the Minions franchise. While developing a backup routine, Sabaté worked feverishly to reach out to individual artists and obtain approval for each of the songs in his medley, which he achieved mere days before competing. Even US skater Amber Glenn briefly faced controversy when a Canadian artist publicly expressed surprise that she was using his music, only for the artist to discover that his music had been fairly licensed after all. Even though Team USA and other countries do their best to simplify the process, it clearly remains very complex.
The International Skating Union has acknowledged the difficulty of the current system and expressed interest in making licensing easier for athletes. ISU President Jae Youl Kim has called it “a very, very, very serious problem,” adding that “we don’t want athletes to be worried about the music.” Skaters themselves have spoken about copyright issues being stressful and upsetting, often an unnecessary distraction in the lead-up to competition. Protecting artists’ music rights is, of course, essential – but Olympic figure skating routines are hardly the kind of infringement harm that copyright law was designed to prevent. The wave of licensing challenges at the Milan-Cortina Olympics suggests a systemic issue that the ISU, Olympic organizers, and the national teams will need to address if they want figure skaters to be able to focus on their craft instead of scrambling for music clearance.
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[8] Id.
[9] ISU ClicknClear — Music Licensing & Rights Clearance for Figure Skating and Other Performance Sports, ISU.CLICKNCLEAR.COM, https://isu.clicknclear.com/en-us/.
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[13] Skretta, Russian Skater Petr Gumennik Forced to Change Music Before Milan-Cortina Olympics.
[14] Ostop, Why Olympic Figure Skaters Face Copyright Issues Over Their Performance Music.