How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Death »

Jeax wrote:I'm going to ask other distributors about the Content ID. https://www.orfium.com/ is new to me. How do you compare it to CD Baby and Distro Kid (the most popular as of now)?
Yes. This is something I always do now. Ask them the requirements for releasing a claim. RouteNote make it way too easy so avoid ones that do the same.

Orfium doesn't have a lot right now so it doesn't really compare to all these other services we're talking about. They're basically just a Content ID and licensing service last I checked so you'd want to suppliment them with a distributor to get your music into stores. I'm not sure if they've gotten facebook Content ID yet but they definitely have for Youtube. They take a 20% cut of your earnings from that which is pretty normal for services that don't charge upfront or ongoing fees (although RouteNote only takes 15%, but I think the extra 5% with Orfium is worth it because of the features I mention in the next paragraph). They will pay you whatever your balance is whenever you request it which is nice.

And like I said, they have something which I can find on no other service which is links to the videos that have claims on them because they've used your music. You can also easily remove the claims by yourself. This is really nice because it lets you go and check out the videos using your music which you wouldn't normally be aware of as people don't tend to ask permission or tell you they're using your music so you're oblivious to a lot of these videos. I've also found it very useful to quickly remove claims by myself in legitimate use cases where I've authorised people to use my music. This is much quicker than having to message support and ask to remove a claim like on other services.

If it weren't for Orfium's painfully buggy website, I'd say they're a good choice for Content ID.

As for CD Baby, I really like them just based on what I know about them (haven't used them yet). I get the impression they're a good company and they also have a lot of different services you can use including physical goods creation and distribution. I also prefer the kind of pricing model they use where you pay a one off fee and your release stays up permanently without having to pay ongoing fees. It may look expensive when you see the release prices, but over time I think this way of doing things can save you money. However, they do still take a percentage of your earnings, although a smaller amount than other stores. But this is the only reason I don't use them (I definitely would otherwise!).

I mainly use a service called EmuBands. It doesn't currently offer as many different types of services as CD Baby, but it's similar to CD Baby in regards to pricing where you just pay a one off fee and then that's it, your release is up permanently. But, these guys don't take any cut of your earnings and instead give you 100%! This makes the upfront fee for distributing each release well worth it in my opinion. But one thing to note is that they charge a £10 admin fee for making changes to a release after it's already been submitted to stores (changing the artwork post release for example). They currently have no Content ID services or Soundcloud monetisation available, but they told me they're expecting those things in the first half of this year. But you can just use RouteNote or both RouteNote and Orfium specifically for those things if you like while waiting for EmuBands to aquire these services.

If you do decide to use EmuBands, you can use my promo code when you sign up if you like: FUSPRZS7
As far as I know, signing up with this code just means they'll chuck me a little bit of money from their own pockets when you distribute something as a thanks for getting someone to sign up. Here's the link to their pricing page for comparison with CD Baby etc: https://www.emubands.com/simple-pricing/

Hope that helps :wink:
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Jeax »

Now I have to check out EmuBands. Regarding Soundcloud, you should only need an ISRC and UPC to monetize music on the platform. You may then need to have your Soundcloud page whitelisted. Is this not a standard process across distributors?
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Death »

Yeh EmuBands have been really good to me so far so I can recommend them as I've been using them for years now.

You lost me a bit with the Soundcloud thing there. Some people can monetise directly through Soundcloud, but I think that's just a small, select group of people at the moment. The rest of us have to go through a distributor to do it. I don't think you actually need UPC or ISRC codes to do it, although they're usually supplied for free by the distributor anyway so it's not a big deal either way. You can then monetise your songs through the distributor. It's pretty easy to setup. The thing I don't like about the process is that you have to give them admin access to your account which means they can read your messages and do whatever they want. Although you can withdraw their access by emailing Soundcloud, but I assume that also means you'll lose your monetisation.
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Jeax »

I don't think we're on the same page. I just explained a monetization process, and there's no need to give admin access to anyone.
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Death »

Jeax wrote:I don't think we're on the same page. I just explained a monetization process, and there's no need to give admin access to anyone.
To monetise your songs on Soundcloud through a distributor you do.
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Jeax »

If by admin access you mean username/password, this concludes the process changes per distributor.
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

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Jeax wrote:If by admin access you mean username/password, this concludes the process changes per distributor.
No you don't give them your username and password. You just have to grant them admin access to your Soundcloud account. I've never liked the idea and it doesn't make sense to me that they need that level of access, but apparently they need it to monetise your songs. Maybe there are some distributors that don't require it. That'd be news to me..
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Jeax »

Sorry for the late response. Been busy distributing. Horus doesn't need it to monetize via SoundCloud. Did the process change at least somewhat with SoundCloud now having a Monetize option? I think it's only for internal sales, but I'm unsure. If you put in the ISRC and UPC, that should be enough for any distributor that'll pull money from it's plays.

Anyone heard of this Tully distributor? I found out about it from the Joyner Lucas ft. Logic - ISIS (ADHD) music video.

Oh, and does anyone distribute music videos to anything outside of Vevo and Hungama?
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Death »

Hmm. Maybe it's just something the distributor I use for Soundcloud monetisation does then. I don't really like them TBH. If they don't actually need that level of access (which never made sense to me anyway), then I like them a lot less. I haven't heard of Tully, but if you use them, please let us know of your experience!
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Jeax »

It seems more distributors are heading towards Distrokid's method of annual payment for release. This will make things more interesting as Spotify, Pandora, and soon other music platforms work to implement their own account systems for listing.
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Re: How do you choose your music distributor - e.g. CD Baby, DistroKid, TuneCore?

Post by Jeax »

Somewhat related, anyone ever aggregate / distribute creative commons music?
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