Could you explain why not? That's exactly the kind of thing a mechanical license would give: the right to cover a song. The difference with music is by law they have to let you obain a compulsory mechanical license.
> The object code of a program may be copyrighted as expression, 17 U.S.C. § 102(a), but it also contains ideas and performs functions that are not entitled to copyright protection. See 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).
> Object code cannot, however, be read by humans.
> The unprotected ideas and functions of the code therefore are frequently undiscoverable in the absence of investigation and translation that may require copying the copyrighted material.
> We conclude that, under the facts of this case and our precedent, Connectix's intermediate copying and use of Sony's copyrighted BIOS was a fair use for the purpose of gaining access to the unprotected elements of Sony's software.
Not only are the methods of operation which underlie the code completely unprotected by copyright, the copying of and the application of tools to the code for the purpose of exercising your right to discover those unprotected elements is fair use.
That doesn't cover mainstream distribution. Fair use is only "intermediate copying" for translation. That doesn't mean copyright doesn't apply. Even the part you quoted still refers to it as "copyrighted material" and "copyrighted BIOS".
oh i misunderstood, i was thinking about live performances. unfortunately you do technically have to obtain a license from the composer in order to sell a recording of a cover.
bad example, in this specific case copyright would actually not apply