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Distrokid - Any disadvantages in comparison to Tunecore/CDBaby?

What was the reason they gave for banning you?
No reason given. Refused to answer emails, after a couple of replies, and wouldn't investigate anything for us. Really shoddy service, so I can't recommend them at all.
 
I've used & like everything about Catapult except for their take down fee..Keep in mind they don't support distribution to the classical genre.
 
Just a quick update from me. CD Baby has just changed their terms and conditions. They take the same %, but now charge you for "hosting" your albums.
 
I have used CDbaby for about 10 years on and off. Tried a few others, with annual fees, but unless you are making more money than the annual fee, it isn't cost effective.

Currently using Symphonic (https://symphonicdistribution.com/) . I set up as a record label, since I record under a few different names / bands. That way it is free to distribute and they just take their cut. Had no problems with them so far. (though the last Hair Thieves EP and probably the next will be through CDBaby again, since I realised I had paid in advance for some releases).
 
Know that no matter who you choose, it is possible to migrate your music over to another service later if you want to. As long as you haven't signed an exlusivity agreement, and you retain identical track ISRC codes and album UPC codes, some services will migrate your music while still retaining stream counts and user playlists.

When looking for a service, make sure they have features you want. For me, it's important that I have the ability to bug fix/update an album after release, and I need to be able to tag the album so it is catalogued in the soundtrack category. Not all services provide this.
 
I didn't know this was possible. Meaning, for example, you could update a track 6 months or a year later and update the album and have that update pushed to all stores? That's a great feature. Which distributor are you using?
INGrooves allows you to do this, not sure about other services though.
 
That's my main concern about Distrokid as well. If I just had to choose between Tunecore and Distrokid, I would definitely choose the latter. But CD Baby does have the advantage of only asking for one single payment (royalties aside...). I really dislike the idea of having to pay anual fees and with CD Baby you don't have to worry about any of that... you just pay for the album once and it stays on sale forever. If you have a huge catalog, Distrokid is the best deal for sure, but, if you plan to release 1-2 albums a year, I'm starting to think that CD Baby could be a better deal. Another thing I've been thinking about is different artist names... With Distrokid, you have to upgrade your account and pay more in order to use different artist names. I suppose that with CD Baby, as you pay per album distributed, it probably wouldn't make a difference (please correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Three years later... How is the OP liking Distrokid now? :)
 
Three years later... How is the OP liking Distrokid now? :)

I am currently using Ditto Music, which has a plan similar to Distro. I went with it simply cause Distro doesn't accept payments through paypal... Ditto is working fine for me so far. If I ever have any complaints about their service, I'll make sure to post them here in case any of you is interested to know about it. Cheers! :)
 
Just updating regarding DistroKid. Avoid them.

They are great until they decide to cut you off.

In our case, with a 10 artist Label Account, they sent us an email telling us to find another distributor.


Hi,

We've been notified that this release has been rejected due to editorial discretion.

There are a few reasons why this may have happened. Some possible reasons are:
  1. "Businesses" such as beat libraries, sample packs, karaoke collections and sound effects
  2. Similar content already in stores (ex: "rain sounds" and that sort of thing)
  3. Poor quality sound recording
  4. Poor quality artwork
  5. Too many similar releases from same artist (flooding)
Sorry about this.

While the vast majority of releases are approved for distribution, stores do occasionally curate content. This is to ensure that end-users have a high-quality experience. This doesn't mean your music is bad. It just means that stores don't need this release at the moment.


This happens from time to time for some arbitrary reason only known to DistroKid.

They will tell you that a store has rejected a release due to "editorial discretion", however the reality is that DistroKid act as gatekeepers and when they send these notices they haven't even submitted the release to a store.

In our case, we have a backup distributor and got the release onto stores, however those solely relying on DistroKid may find themselves in a pickle.

However further releases have also been blocked and now we have been told by DistroKid to find another distributor.


Hi,

We've been notified that one or more of your releases has been rejected due to editorial discretion.

There are a few reasons why this may have happened. Some possible reasons are: Too many similar releases from same artist (flooding) Poor quality sound recording Poor quality artwork Similar content already in stores (ex: "rain sounds" and that sort of thing)

Sorry about this.

While the vast majority of releases are approved for distribution, stores do occasionally curate content. This is to ensure that end-users have a high-quality experience. This doesn't mean your music is bad. It just means that stores don't need this release at the moment.

Stores are no longer accepting releases from you via DistroKid. Please try another distributor.

There's no real reason given, but to have a 10 artist label account cut loose is pretty bad.

In our case we're just going to methodically move our releases to another distributor.

We have already now released the albums that DistroKid rejected via our backup distributor without issues.

I had read a lot of reviews about DistroKid and decided anyone playing by the rules wouldn't be affected by such arbitrary decision making, I was obviously wrong. Anyone at any time with a DistroKid account and distribution may find themselves in the unenviable position of being cut loose.

There are various threads on Reddit and other places regarding this behaviour on the part of DistroKid, I wish now that I had given them more credit.
 
I've been using Soundrop from 2015-2017 and Distrokid since 2017 until now.
Both have completely met my expectations, but the reason for me to switch to Distrokid, was because it's more profitable, as there's no cut being taken and their annual rates are really low. I am mostly producing modern classical / cinematic music, both original and covers and have never had any issues.

The only tricky thing with Distrokid is uploading Christmas covers (old public domain songs) This has failed one time in 2017 when Distrokid didn't seem to have public domain covers under control.
I contacted them just now to ask if it is at all possible and they replied it shouldn't be a problem as long as I mark myself as the songwriter. So will have to wait and see if this works out, otherwise I will use Soundrop who is very good in distributing cover music.
 
I've been using Soundrop from 2015-2017 and Distrokid since 2017 until now.
Both have completely met my expectations, but the reason for me to switch to Distrokid, was because it's more profitable, as there's no cut being taken and their annual rates are really low.

I would have said exactly the same until DistroKid suddenly pulled the rug from under us.

We had a 10 artist label account, releasing high quality original music. Now, everything has had to be moved. A simple Google search for Distrokid problems, Distrokid Scam or Distrokid Editorial Discretion will reveal so many of the same stories. I hope your account is safe and you continue having good distribution through Distrokid, but let me tell you, they are great until the day they screw you.
 
I would have said exactly the same until DistroKid suddenly pulled the rug from under us.

We had a 10 artist label account, releasing high quality original music. Now, everything has had to be moved. A simple Google search for Distrokid problems, Distrokid Scam or Distrokid Editorial Discretion will reveal so many of the same stories. I hope your account is safe and you continue having good distribution through Distrokid, but let me tell you, they are great until the day they screw you.

Just out of curiosity, could you see how any of those 5 reasons could be applied to what your label had on there?
  1. "Businesses" such as beat libraries, sample packs, karaoke collections and sound effects
  2. Similar content already in stores (ex: "rain sounds" and that sort of thing)
  3. Poor quality sound recording
  4. Poor quality artwork
  5. Too many similar releases from same artist (flooding)
Not that they should pull your music for those reasons, just curious if you could see their reasoning at all, however unfair it may have been.
 
Just out of curiosity, could you see how any of those 5 reasons could be applied to what your label had on there?
  1. "Businesses" such as beat libraries, sample packs, karaoke collections and sound effects
  2. Similar content already in stores (ex: "rain sounds" and that sort of thing)
  3. Poor quality sound recording
  4. Poor quality artwork
  5. Too many similar releases from same artist (flooding)
Not that they should pull your music for those reasons, just curious if you could see their reasoning at all, however unfair it may have been.

No, none of our music was in any of those categories.

The trigger for this seems very obscure, there are quite a number of Reddit threads where the same thing has happened to others and one person in this thread also had the same experiece we did.

The only things that I can think of that triggered this was royalties due to be paid or number of releases. One of our artists moved their entire back catalogue over (14 albums) [we put in a support ticket with Distrokid to give them the heads up about that and they replied that it was fine]. Now of course they need to be moved again.

The release that triggered 'editorial discretion' was a 4 track EP of Piano Music from a relatively established artist with 6 releases total over 3 years.

My personal opinion is that Distrokid is a shoestring run operation and something got triggered by an automated process that no human there is willing to undo. Which is a shame, we were just about to upgrade to a much bigger plan for more artists. I am glad this happened while we only have 10 artists to deal with.

I would say for anyone thinking about Distrokid, think again, because this stuff can happen to you and there is no recourse.
 
I would have said exactly the same until DistroKid suddenly pulled the rug from under us.

We had a 10 artist label account, releasing high quality original music. Now, everything has had to be moved. A simple Google search for Distrokid problems, Distrokid Scam or Distrokid Editorial Discretion will reveal so many of the same stories. I hope your account is safe and you continue having good distribution through Distrokid, but let me tell you, they are great until the day they screw you.
thanks for making me aware, I'll keep my eyes open:) could you share to which distributor you switched?
 
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