You dont actually need to be a member of DistroKid to vote for songs with Playlist Spotlight, but you do need to be a DistroKid member to submit your own tracks. This articles main focus is on Cd Baby vs Distrokid and which distributor is better for musicians. Your performance royalties are collected by performance rights organizations (PROs). Winner: Moot Point. Pay as you upload is a good thing if you hate the idea of having to pay a yearly subscription fee. Pay as you upload is a bad thing if you plan to release a lot of music. So if you do a Paul McCartney cover that gets played a lot on Sirius XM, 50% goes to Paul McCartney, 45% goes to you, the featured artist covering that song. The streaming model of listening to music is categorised as a sort of public performance as the music is not owned by the listener and is similar to a radio play in that respect. So if someone plays a Paul McCartney song at a live venue the PRO pays Paul McCartney and whatever publishing company he is/was signed too. Go create. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. This works out a bit cheaper than Songtrust but again relies on the fact that youre already paying TuneCore for distribution. The playlists are updated every week, and when the playlists get updated, all the votes reset to zero. But, while everything in this article can be a real head ache to understand and consider, it is getting much easier for independent musicians to take control of their work and get the money thats owed to them. Copyright 2023 Best Friends Club Ltd., all rights reserved. But what about performance and songwriting royalties? Theres also a Twitch affiliate program, and an AI bot that analyzes your song and tells you how danceable it is (in percentages) and its key signature. I will give you a behind the scenes look at campaigns I ran for my musics Youtube channel,, Read More Promote Your Music Video With YouTube AdsContinue, How to make your voice deeper is a question many people have. What Artists Should Know About Songtrust - Passive Promotion Mechanical royalties are paid out any time a physical or digital copy of one of your songs is made. However, after all this, Im not just going to just leave you hanging like that. If a record label likes what it sees, it will reach out to you directly. However, DistroKid is working on a publishing admin system for artists that may be available at a future date. Oh, and dont forget that when you hire a publisher or publishing administrator, it adds even more bucks to your bill. When I Delete a Release, Do I Still Get My Earnings? Does Distrokid Collect Your Performance Royalties? Mechanicals are for songwriters, so they aren't part of the chain for distributors. If you opt into Upstream, labels will have access to your Upstream profile, which will include links to your music, your streaming statistics, and your contact information. We dont yet offer admin publishing services. A master refers to an actual audio recording of a song. Learn more about me by clicking here. Even the info onDistrokidandCdBabyswebsites was spread out all over the place and I had to spend a lot of time gathering it from various pages to even make the side by side comparison. Must register with sound exchange. However, maintaining rights through DistroKid comes with additional fees for each of its additional services; the company has to make money somehow. Well, it depends. When stores send us earnings reports, we send 100% of the earnings allocated to you straight to your DistroKid bank. This includes radio stations, TV, live performance, and venues (such as restaurants or bars). Your understanding should all come together at the end, but even if you only grasp half, youll understand more than most artists and be able to truly make an informed decision not only on CD Baby vs Distrokid, but on a lot of other business decisions that have to do with your music career. Songtrust also allow you to keep 100% music copyright ownership of your work. DistroKid and other similar services are only for distribution and collect mechanical royalties for digital streams and sales. Performance AND mechanical royalties. Also, Songtrust will help you register with a PRO too. This means that, while they are great for independent artists, if youre new and have low streaming and listener numbers its worth waiting before you invest in global royalty collection. So if you distribute your music with DistroKid and wrote the songs, the only way to collect all of. Songtrust is a publishing administration company that helps artists collect publishing, mechanical, and live performance royalties. By all means, were not telling you to drop DistroKid or other streaming distributors in favor of only PROs. The CDbaby Pro option is very enticing and I almost went with CDBaby. If you don't have a PRO available in your country, or you'd rather work with BMI or ASCAP, you can still register your music with them if you live outside the United States. How Much Do Streaming Services Pay Per Stream? Both large and small businesses are jumping in on the video marketing wave. Recording royalties encompass those generated from reproduction rights, synchronization rights, and performance rights. The higher percentages could earn you multiple thousands in extra revenue if your music takes off. For BMI, since their percentage system is on a 200% scale, independent artists with no music publisher or record deals will put 200% into the songwriting section and 0% in the publishing. DistroKid only collects reproduction royalties, which are a type of recording royalty. TuneCore charges$75 per writerto cover setup and administrative costs and they also retain a 15% commission from the royalties that they collect on your behalf. If youre not sure you want to opt-in at the time of release, you can always go into your releases and add it later in your career. You can release cover songs easily, and DistroKid will help you take care of which royalties go where. However, reaching out to music supervisors is time consuming and difficult with no connections. If you're an established artist, then you should be signed up to an organisation that collects your other royalties, such as performance and songwriting royalties. When setting up your profile, you can categorize yourself on all of DistroKid's social features by genre and artists who have influenced you. DistroKid also uses a few programs to help get its members in front of larger audiences, including Hyperfollow, Playlist Spotlight, Wheel of Playlist, Slaps, and Upstream. Slaps is similar to SoundCloud in that you can comment on specific timestamps of a trackif you really liked one line in the second verse of a song, you can let the artist know right then and there. This is a very important difference between the PROs and streaming distributors like DistroKid: while DistroKid distributes royalties based on the number of plays, BMI and ASCAP calculate their royalties based on the percentage of plays you got compared to everyone else. HOWEVER, the difference between the two is like $50 at most. Uploading an album is just as easy as uploading a single. revenue from streams on streaming services like Spotify. How and When Do I Get Paid? - DistroKid Help Center Leave a Legacy costs a one-time fee of $49 USD for albums (or any release composed of two or more songs) and $29 USD for singles. You could be missing out on a lot of royalties which will go uncollected if youre only using a distributor. You can easily create Hyperfollow links and when someone clicks one, theyll automatically follow you on Spotify and have your music saved to their library. Whether it is performing live on stage, music playing in the background at a cafe or radio playtime, BMI and ASCAP collect the royalties and distribute it among the copyright owners (songwriters and publishers). The good news is that CD Baby is a non-exclusive sync licensing company. This can be a plus or a minus depending on how often you release music. They'll collect songwriter royalties for you. Here is a link with a Distrokid discount so that you can do the same:Get 7% of Distrokid. A composition refers to the lyrics and notes of a song. Summary: Collect all your music royalties in four steps. These companies/agents pitch your music to music supervisors and other sync opportunities on your behalf. If you want to upload your music today and ensure it remains available for years to come, you must opt into the Leave a Legacy program. Collecting Publishing Royalties Without Distrokid How Do You Do It? To collect mechanical royalties outside of DistroKid you need to be part of a music publishing company. Also, you arent locked into the yearly fee for life. One of those avenues is through a non-profit, public performance rights organization like BMIor ASCAP. The money works out the same between BMI and ASCAP, just the percentages they use are different. This means you receive royalties on all songs youve written even if youre not the one performing it. DistroKid Review: Is It Legit? - Two Story Melody Winner CDBaby vs Distrokid Sync Royalties: CDBaby (kinda). Editors note: This review was updated on July 12, 2021, to address an FAQ about artist accounts. Its what Spotify, Apple, Amazon and all the other streaming/downloading services pay when someone buys or streams your song. With all these services you have to release the song using the distributor in order to access the mechanical and performance royalties unlike Songtrust. To begin, the prices on each platform vary widely depending on which option you choose. If you do decide to go with my option: Here is the 7% of link for your first year of Distrokid. You never pay another fee. After signing up for DistroKid, youll want to design your personal profile. Slaps rewards people who engage with other musicians by promoting their music. If you are using DistroKid to distribute your music but hope to sign a record deal someday, DistroKid Upstream can help you out. How Much of My Earnings Does DistroKid Keep? However, I couldnt give up that 9% commission. However, Distrokid takes 20% of the YouTube royalties they find and collect. DistroKid prides itself on how quickly it places music in stores, but to be safe, you should set your release date 3-4 weeks in advance. However, given the strides that AI has made in the field of graphic design, we can certainly say that a combination of human and artificial intelligence can open up new avenues for creativity and bring increased efficiency to the design process. Frequently Asked Questions | Mechanical Licensing Collective - The MLC You cant use DistroKid to collect publishing royalties however it is still our favourite distributor and we would definitely recommend using Songtrust to collect your royalties globally. What a sync agency charges, and whether you give them exclusive sync rights, is on a per company basis. For this reason, we recommend the Musician Plus subscription. This is why it is important to be set up with a music distributor like DistroKid. If youre hoping to make millions by just getting your music played on streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Play, weve got some bad news: you wont, even if you've properly submitted your songs to a music distributor like DistroKid.