The Rustling Stillness

This is a follow-up of my previous post about DistroKid , regarding a recent controversy of lacking transparency on a newly introduced tax withholding practice, resulted in some, but not all, DistroKid users receiving royalties less than requested without proper explanation. A Brazillian YouTuber Dan Vasc published a video " I WAS ROBBED | DistroKid Steals Money From Musicians " in May, explaining in details how he received his royalties $3,000 short from DistroKid and how DistroKid responded to his enquires. After the video went viral, Dan posted a comment on his video saying that DistroKid has returned his money and he will post another video for the details about this. Dan posted this follow-up video, DISTROKID Returned My Money... But I Won't Keep It , two days ago, on 29 Jun 2020. In the video, Dan mentioned that he has tried getting in touch with DistroKid and the Founder/CEO, Philip Kaplan, a few weeks before his previous video, but nothing was replied. However, a

In this article, I will share my hands-on experience with three digital distributors, CD Baby, EmuBands and DistroKid, so anyone interested can know more about the experiences that are not possible to know solely from browsing their websites. In the second half of this article, I will also list a few other distributors that I don't have experience with but hopefully some others may find useful. After my last post about digital distribution, I received a few messages asking about the distributors that distribute cover songs. Both Landr and Soundrop (listed in the middle part of the article) offer cover song licensing for a one-off fee. Please refer to the section for details. I will go straight into these distributors. For more background about digital distribution, please read my another post: How to Release Your Music on Spotify and Apple Music? Table of Contents CD Baby EmuBands DistroKid Landr Soundrop Ditto Amuse RouteNote . CD Baby The largest and oldest distributor on the

In this article, I will go through a few points that may be useful when planning to release music on streaming platforms/stores like Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.  More on this topic:  DistroKid vs. CD Baby vs. EmuBands and more - My Experience with Music Distributors 6 Pitfalls to Know About Distrokid Updates on DistroKid's tax withholding controversy  (users may not get all the royalties) Let's jump in. Table of Contents What are the essentials to release music on streaming platforms/stores? I've got everything I need, what's next? Other than Spotify and Apple Music, which are the other platforms/stores available? What is UPC/ISRC? Why is UPC/ISRC important? So, is it free or not to release music on streaming platforms/stores? Which are the aggregators/distributors available to release music on streaming platforms/stores? How to decide which distributor to go with? I've decided which distributor to go with, how to release my music? Wh

Distrokid has become one of the major digital music distributors on the market, alongside with CD Baby , Tunecore , Amuse , Ditto and others . However, to make sure you get what you wish for, a few things need to be kept in mind when working with Distrokid. Some of the 'claims' may not be as straightforward as it appears to be.  To be fair, Distrokid is a decent distributor and gets the job done, and is ideal for musicians who constantly release music and want to keep 100% of the royalties. All I'm trying to do is to list these "heads ups" to anyone planning to use their service, so one can gauge whether the service meets the expectations and save the hassles later on.  Distrokid isn't the only option on the table, some other distributors offer the same services with comparable prices or even for free.   More about this topic:  DistroKid vs. CD Baby vs. EmuBands and more - My Experience with Music Distributors Updates on DistroKid's tax withholding