Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

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irwin
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by irwin »

IANAL, but the amuse.io terms of use says:
The exclusive right to make your Recordings available on the Internet and without limitation, on all Stores and any other similar digital media for sale by downloading, interactive and non-interactive streaming, cloud services and streaming-on-demand or now known or hereinafter devised, similar means of making use of the Recordings.
Does that mean if one uses amuse.io, one can use no other online service?
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

I would think that only applies to the recordings that you provide to them - like, that's just saying that if you provide a song to them then you can't also provide the same song to DistroKid. Which makes sense, because none of the streaming services have any provision for multiple distribution channels for the same song.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by irwin »

Right, I should have been more specific. “Recording” has a very specific meaning under copyright law. I was just wondering what implications that has.

I mean, the way I read it, it seems to say that I can’t put that particular rendering of my song on my own website anymore. Can I send it to a friend, on the capital-I Internet via SMTP? What else can or cannot I do? “Make available on the Internet” is a fairly broad brush.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

Oh, you’re right. I guess that means that if it’s on amuse you’re not allowed to have it on bandcamp or your own site. Hm. Worth asking them for clarification - if that is the case I’m going to just go back to putting everything on DistroKid.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

I'm thinking these services have got a good racket going with their prices per album, especially if you have to keep paying per year to keep the album up, even if you keep 100% of your royalties. 99%+ of the time the albums released will be generating approximately zero royalties. So all the zillions of long tail folks out there are forking over money every year for every album they want to have to stay up on streaming services. If I don't really expect my album to get many spins, like, maybe my friends and family would listen a couple times at best, maybe I'd be better off going with a service that takes some cut of royalties and charges a smaller annual fee per album, or even better a one-time fee per album, etc.?
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

Yeah, they're sort of selling the hope that your stuff ends up becoming popular. I've never made even close to my $25/year back.

These days I'm just like... posting my shit on bandcamp and not worrying about spotify/iTunes/etc. I haven't taken down my Distrokid account yet since it's "just $25/year" but I'm also not particularly interested in upgrading to their pro-level features either.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

Anybody tried Level ... ?

https://levelmusic.com/plans

I also looked at UnitedMasters. I'd heard of them because someone who was briefly my boss's boss, who had come from Beats/Apple, left Pandora to work at UnitedMasters. But their service doesn't really seem like that great a deal. What's up with some of these services not distributing to Pandora for their lower service tiers?! :lol:
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

That site doesn't fill me with confidence.

Given that amuse.io is free, I'd probably go with them if it weren't for the open question of whether you're actually still allowed to post your own stuff on other services like bandcamp or whatever. I never did get an answer from their support folks about it.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

Yeah... the other thing I'm thinking is that I have one artist I'd like to release an album for now but in the future I think I'd like to release albums for 1-2 others. :/
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

Level is apparently a project from Warner Music, so, while their Web site looks pretty dubious, they are backed by one of the majors. Kinda weird.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

So, $20/year is slightly cheaper than DistroKid's $25/years, but what happens when you exceed 200 tracks? And given that it's backed by Warner that actually makes me a bit less confident in it. DistroKid is always adding more features based on what the platforms support, like synchronized lyrics and so on, but I'd be worried about a major label trying to embrace/extinguish indie artists who don't want to sign with them.

Feels dubious to me.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

I guess to me it's less dubious that it isn't some random startup by one person, no offense to Pud and Distrokid. I think Pud is committed and Distrokid isn't going anywhere, but, I know less about some of the other offerings.

SoundCloud apparently also has a distribution option and it's included with the "Pro Unlimited" plan that I'm already paying for so now I'm reading about that.

https://www.repostnetwork.com/

Looks like they take 20% of the revenue, but, in my case, that would likely be 20% of $0.0000000000001 so, maybe a good deal, and so far I don't see limitations on how many artists/tracks/albums but I'm just starting to read the details now.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

Also I think I'm past thinking that music is going to be a second career or a profit-generating hobby or whatever. I just want to make stuff and post it and have fun with it. I'm tired of the commoditization of free time, and the entire industry that has sprung up around exploiting that (see also: twitch, etsy, Kindle Direct, lulu, youtube, etc.)

I think if you're ever in a position where you're doing well enough at music to make a living on it, the minute differences between the various platforms' distribution costs become fairly negligible. Most of the money is going to Spotify at this point anyway.

Incidentally I've been following Pud ever since his Fucked Company days. I've also met him in person. Nice fellow, and he's also purposefully avoiding unsustainable growth. I think DistroKid as a company is just him and two of his friends.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

Yeah, the money is going to Spotify, who is I guess mostly just flushing it down the toilet somehow since they continue to lose money with no signs of that ever stopping?! :lol: Plus they're spending a lot of it on podcasts! Thanks musicians! :eyeroll: Ugh, I hate Spotify.

Anyway, I don't mean to sound like I'm knocking the pricing model for Distrokid/etc., it's great for them and seems very sustainable for them. I'm just not sure it's worth it to me for what amounts to a vanity project is all I'm considering now.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

Oh, huh. Well, that's... certainly a thing.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

I'm also surprised Pud went with any sort of equity partner, especially considering that DistroKid makes millions a year as it is. And his aforementioned hatred of unsustainable growth startups. But what do I know.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by BoffoYux »

fluffy wrote:
Mon Aug 24, 2020 11:36 pm
I'm also surprised Pud went with any sort of equity partner, especially considering that DistroKid makes millions a year as it is. And his aforementioned hatred of unsustainable growth startups. But what do I know.
Pud might have done it for access to the platform and 'extras', like the early prelease landing pages. I'm still slowly dipping my toe into DK - The one 'release' I tried for a NurEin ID playlist album got bounced because it was 'too many short tracks'.

Pud's a drummer from Syracuse University, so I've followed him off and on since the FC days. He made his fortune already, and I feel that DK is his baby and he actually gives a F about the artists. Might have changed, but he totally blew Tunecore and CD Baby's paid distribution business model to shreds.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

Yeah it says a lot how both the founders of TuneCore and CDBaby have switched to DK and very publicly said how much better DK is than their own old companies.

DK does tend to be a bit aggressive at interpreting the stores' rules, which can be annoying (I ran into a lot of trouble with the early Novembeat compilations, both because of short tracks and because of "no year in the title" which seems weirdly arbitrary) but it does at least make life easier for everyone.

I wish their uploader interface were a bit nicer, that said. It can be really annoying to deal with all of the per-track metadata that they ask for especially when most tracks have the same metadata (composer, vocals vs. instrumental, etc.) and it's easy to make mistakes too. But it works well enough and the end result is fine.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by Lunkhead »

I'm just going to go with DK I guess. Worst case I stop paying and my stuff gets pulled and I redistribute it with some other option some day, if something better comes along. Best case my stuff goes viral and I enjoy collecting 100% of those sweet sweet royalties.
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

yeah exactly, on that note I need to pull my shit off amuse.io and move it to distrokid but they owe me approximately 50 cents less than their payment threshold
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Re: Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

Post by fluffy »

oh wait no I've only earned $1.97 there and the payment threshold is $10

guess I'm never getting that $2

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