Least-shitty distribution and manufacturing channels

[kevsmith81]

Thanks, Kev.

An update for sounddrop. They are bare bones, no customer service and no breakdown in streams/income etc., Now the project we put up there hasn't garnered much in the way of either, but I couldn't find any information about anything. Still worked pretty well for the covers project that we don't expect any income from. I'm still tempted to put the one album (that does the least in streaming etc.,) over there so I don't have to keep paying for the cover charge fees.

I've literally just submitted a cover for distribution through Soundrop over this weekend. Again, don't expect to make much in the way of income from it but for less than £1 it seemed worth trying. Still trying to find the best option for distribution for originals, but Soundrop definitely works for covers which are a bit more of a minefield.

[ujnhunter]

Yeah, Covers should 100% be using Soundrop, it's a $1 one time fee.

[fluffy]

... I’m switching away from distrokid after using them for like 15 years.

I mean they still fucking suck in a lot of respects but what in the streaming industry doesn’t?

Do yo have an update on your experience with them?

So far they’ve been okay, not great. They told me to rerelease my albums with the same UPCs as before which turned out to be a huge mistake which caused a lot of hiccups with getting my stuff back online. It’s also not clear if I should have reused my ISRCs as well. Support insists that was the right thing to do. I haven’t yet received any royalties or reported earnings through them and I have no idea if that’s Spotify being a butt or if my royalties are still being sent to Distrokid due to the code reuse or if people are just not listening to my music anymore. Notably I haven’t received any earnings reports for the albums I released last November and which were only ever on TooLost, but it can also take months for that stuff to start showing up, so who fucking knows. I only put my shit on streaming as a marketing + weak legal protection thing anyway.

Their support tends to take forever to answer anything and they are pretty unhelpful. I’ve been trying for months to get a couple of my releases to appear on my official YouTube channel instead of ending up on an unaffiliated “topic” channel (where they appear alongside an Israeli band that “borrowed” my band name a few years ago).

The actual process of getting stuff uploaded on toolost is less-frustrating than distrokid, at least, and their pricing is way more reasonable. So far as I know they also haven’t engaged in union busting or “complying in advance” with things that hurt musicians.

[jast]

Normally, for migrating releases, reusing the UPC and ISRC is the right thing to do (a new UPC should be used only if it's a different release), the documentation from all distributors is unanimous about that. And it's normal to have a bit of overlap in which royalties still go to the old distributor.
Aside from that, since Spotify adjusted their payout so that small artists get fuck all, I no longer really expect any royalties anymore (and mine were not worth mentioning in the first place). Since migrating my releases away from Songtradr in June 2024, my grand total so far is $0.19, most of which comes from platforms other than Spotify.

I'm still with LANDR (Distribution Pro plan) and I've had minimal interaction with them but also zero issues. Support response times are "guaranteed" to be at most 72 (basic) or 24 (pro) hours. Turnaround on releases has been quite fast, even though on all of my migrated releases they came back to ask me for "proof" that I own the releases because of a fingerprinting match with an existing release (duh). Just uploading a screenshot of the song in the old distributor's dashboard each time was enough and then everything went through within a day or so.

[jast]

Correction. Exactly 0% of those royalties came from Spotify.

PS. LANDR appears to have a dedicated form to link YouTube artist channels. I haven't tested it though.

[Lunkhead]

... since Spotify adjusted their payout so that small artists get fuck all ...

I'm assuming you're referring to the terms added recently that a track has to get 1000 spins in a year (or whatever trailing time frame) to qualify at all for any payments? For anybody else here who doesn't yet know about that, that it is something that the major record label UMG has been forcing streaming services to add to their terms as they renew their contracts. One "fun" thing about trying to run a streaming service is that it's not viable w/o content from the 3 major record labels, and so those labels can dictate terms to all the services (even Spotify). Also the labels only sign deals that last 2-3 years so that they have regular opportunities to force new requirements, like that one. That change is most likely going to roll out across all the services over the course of a couple years as UMG's deals expire and get renewed with the other services. For example:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/spotify ... 1000-plays
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 18974.html
https://atlanticamusic.com/post/amazon- ... w-umg-deal

In typical corporate double speak, UMG calls these changes an "artist centric" model. Makes sense if you define "artists" as "only major label signed artists" of course. You can thank this asshole for these changes:

https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/ ... -arrived1/

[fluffy]

PS. LANDR appears to have a dedicated form to link YouTube artist channels. I haven't tested it though.

Too Lost has a form too and I’ve filled it out many times and each time they say it’ll be taken care of. It never is. I’m not sure if the problem is with Too Lost or if it’s on YouTube’s end.

Distrokid disagrees about the UPC reuse when it comes to migrating away from them, and lunkhead, didn’t you once tell me that it also causes problems on the Pandora backend? but I’m not sure if that’s a universal problem or a Pandora problem.

[ujnhunter]

Sounds like Distrokid is just making it difficult for people to move away from them...

[jast]

Too Lost has a form too and I’ve filled it out many times and each time they say it’ll be taken care of. It never is. I’m not sure if the problem is with Too Lost or if it’s on YouTube’s end.

All LANDR has to say about it is that YT's review process takes several weeks which matches what I read in Songtradr's docs back when I was using them, and it's also what appears in DistroKid's docs. If you don't hear back at all within like 6 or 8 weeks, I'd assume it's probably Too Lost's fault.

[BoffoYux]

At least I can say Too Lost is doing content mapping on YT. I got a copyright notice on an old SongFight LP yesterday for a Sockpuppet tune, so they're listening to my old shows. 3 years old. 30 views.

https://www.youtube.com/live/yKPIn7z2tOI

Usually, it was for old Frankie Big Face tunes, but I guess they are expanding to other artists.
+++
Hi BoffoYuxDudes,


Copyrighted content has been detected in your video "SongFight 'Behind The Mask' Listening Party". The visibility of your video is not impacted, but you can no longer monetize it. The copyright owner is now either monetizing it, or receiving analytics about it. This is not a copyright strike and does not affect your channel.


Content used

Behind a Mask - Sockpuppet Updated March 6, 2025

Content owners: [Merlin] Too Lost
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator
+++

[fluffy]

Content ID is different than content mapping, but nice to know that thing is finally working, jeeze.

[BoffoYux]

I forgot Content ID and mapping are 2 different things!

It varies when I get them - only one in 2023, like 17 in 2024 and 7 so far this year. But they go back sometimes 5 years ago!

Then again, I have over a month's worth of audio if you listened to all the LPs back to back. It might take a while to go through them all and see if the fingerprint fits what they have on file.

Just for the fun of it, I'll put up the songs that have been flagged. See if you guys are there!

Friday Nights - King 9 and the Blackwoods Updated February 15, 2025
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

I'm Covered In It Now - Agony Sauce Updated October 16, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

I'm Covered In It Now - Sam Douglass Updated October 16, 2024
Content owners: RepostNetwork
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

A Grand Parade - Sockpuppet Updated December 30, 2024
Content owners: [Merlin] Too Lost
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

The Parade - mzmo Updated August 22, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Cameron's Funk - Agony Sauce Updated August 22, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Potential Consequences - Here, Atticus Updated December 29, 2024
Content owners: RouteNote
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

The White Morph - Moody Vermin Updated July 3, 2021
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Potential Consequences - spite Updated February 26, 2021
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Better Luck Next Year - Sockpuppet Updated December 25, 2024
Content owners: [Merlin] Too Lost
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Better Luck Next Year - Sockpuppet Updated December 24, 2024
Content owners: [Merlin] Too Lost
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Better Luck Next Year - Future Boy Updated February 18, 2023
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Rear Window - Frankie Big Face Updated October 6, 2020
Content owners: RouteNote
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Twangles the Christmas Squid - Jason Morris Updated December 18, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Bride - Good Guy Sôjàbé Updated December 17, 2024
Content owners: FUGA
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Right Again - Mandibles Updated December 10, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Blown Chances - Jealous Brother Updated June 28, 2023
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Bride - Good Guy Sôjàbé Updated November 30, 2024
Content owners: FUGA
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Wind Beneath My Wings Updated March 2, 2020
Content owners: LatinAutor - Warner Chappell, LatinAutorPerf, Warner Chappell, Sony Music Publishing, Kobalt Music Publishing, LatinAutor, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, WCM SG/PRS, PEDL
Content type: Melody or lyrics
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Brand New Car - deshead Updated November 5, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

CRAWL Updated October 25, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby Pro (Publishing)
Content type: Melody or lyrics
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Bitter Monday-23502 - State Shirt Updated October 25, 2024
Content owners: Adrev for Rights Holder
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

I'm Covered In It Now - Agony Sauce Updated October 16, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

I'm Covered In It Now - Sam Douglass Updated October 16, 2024
Content owners: RepostNetwork
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

By Inches - Jim of Seattle Updated September 17, 2024
Content owners: The Orchard Music
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Welcome to Windows - Jim of Seattle Updated September 17, 2024
Content owners: The Orchard Music
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

The Parade - mzmo Updated August 22, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Cameron's Funk - Agony Sauce Updated August 22, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

By Inches - Jim of Seattle Updated March 25, 2024
Content owners: The Orchard Music
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Curtains On the Windows Updated July 23, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby Sync Publishing
Content type: Melody or lyrics
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Better Luck Next Year - Future Boy Updated July 23, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Content name unavailable - King 9 and the Blackwoods Updated July 10, 2024
Content owners: CD Baby CO
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

I'm Covered In It Now - Agony Sauce Updated April 23, 2024
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

I'm Covered In It Now - Sam Douglass Updated April 23, 2024
Content owners: RepostNetwork
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

Can't Let It Go - Yaks of the Industry Updated November 21, 2023
Content owners: Amuseio AB
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

By Inches - Jim of Seattle Updated June 14, 2022
Content owners: The Orchard Music
Content type: Audio
Impact on video: No impact until you become a monetizing creator

[fluffy]

Yeah, just to clarify, Content ID is the copyright enforcement thing, Content Mapping is where it decides whether to put a release onto an artist's official YouTube channel or onto a "topic" channel.

For example, here's my official YouTube page: https://youtube.com/@realfakesockpuppet

and here's a "topic" channel that tends to absorb a bunch of my releases (as well as the releases of another band called Sockpuppet): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChUwPt ... 6xELV_dUeQ

And here's a "topic" channel for Brother Machine, which will presumably exist in perpetuity: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS3nCx ... 8xHDL22BGQ

If you've ever released music on YouTube Music, and you have an official YouTube channel that you care about, make sure your music is content mapped to your official channel instead of the topic channel. It's a pain in the butt but it's nice to have all your stuff in one spot (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/@realfakesockpuppet/releases) and it also gives your youtube channel official artist status which I assume is handy for other things.