pouët.net

Distrokid sucks, don't use them! (explanation inside)

category: general [glöplog]
Due to my personal experience with them, I'd strongly advise against using Distrokid as your digital music distributor. They took my money, requested a photo scan of my national ID card for proof and then ran off without releasing my stuff. I've been waiting for months now, my music never got released and they do not reply to emails. In the end, I had to contact my credit card provider for a refund (still pending). I've now deleted my account to sign up elsewhere.

They seem to have no working customer service. No email response, absolutely no sign of life from them since early this year apart from some auto-generated messages and their stupid twitter feed which, interestingly enough, moans about unfriendly customers (I wonder why??? Maybe because they are being ignored!?). Thousands of other musicians seem to be experiencing the same currently, according to a ton of 1-star ratings / reviews on trustpilot.de

They are just bad, please don't get burned by them like I did!
added on the 2020-05-12 03:53:13 by SunSpire SunSpire
Small correction to the above so I don't sound like an idiot: There are only "123" reviews on trustpilot, not thousands. But you'll find plenty more negative comments on other review platforms and in many recent youtube videos talking about said music distributor.

I found an interesting video review talking about some more of the things wrong with this distributor, that I had not even been aware of until now, in particular DK's purchaseable leave a legacy option which is a bit fucked up. I'll put a link here in case you're curious. Now I'm kinda glad this didn't work out, yikes!
added on the 2020-05-12 04:54:29 by SunSpire SunSpire
I had experienced none of the above so far: already distributed 15 releases with Distrokid, and they were always sent to the online stores and streaming services within a couple of days.

I cannot say much about their customer support, as I had no need to contact them yet, but using them for over 2 years now, from here it just looks you had bad luck. And 125 reviews are not really weighting for a site, that is used by probably thousands of musicians (assuming, that only the unhappy ones write reviews mostly at those rating sites)

But let's see what other write, I know 2 people who use DK, and had no further issues so far with releasing.
added on the 2020-05-12 11:00:48 by teo teo
Haven't had any problems yet myself either, can't say anything about the customer support though as I haven't had the need to use it.
added on the 2020-05-12 11:17:57 by britelite britelite
Quote:
requested a photo scan of my national ID card for proof

This feels a bit weird though, I didn't have to submit anything like this.
added on the 2020-05-12 11:21:11 by britelite britelite
Quote:
Quote:
requested a photo scan of my national ID card for proof

This feels a bit weird though, I didn't have to submit anything like this.


yeah, same here, never had to identify myself in any form, except for submitting my tax id for the incomes.
added on the 2020-05-12 12:44:41 by teo teo
Sunspire, did you fall for one of those "Distribute your music in China" emails? :)
added on the 2020-05-12 12:55:59 by Gargaj Gargaj
A Brief History of (disappeared) SunSpire Music in China
added on the 2020-05-12 14:29:19 by fgenesis fgenesis
DK sux tbh - botland customer service + getting branded with the DiistroKid label seems dodgy copyright wise, ditched it with no regrets whatsoever - there are far better options out there nowadays. Using Ditto for publishing now, released quite a lot stuff through their service, support are actual people with names that reply within 24h from my experience. If 1337 is with u then this hax might still work GL.

BB Image

If positive, then be nice and register through my ref link so they will have to send me a swagbag (wtf it is) just for the lulz.

https://vrlps.co/eHJM5xx/cp
added on the 2020-05-12 16:22:50 by klll klll
is it really worth it to use such services?
i mean of course the chance that someone stumbles across your tracks is probably higher if its on every imaginable platform out there but you could also just put it on bandcamp and be done with it.
theres so much music available these days that it seems unlikely its generating real revenue if not promoted by a big label or going viral on social media...
added on the 2020-05-12 17:21:26 by wysiwtf wysiwtf
Quote:
is it really worth it to use such services?
i mean of course the chance that someone stumbles across your tracks is probably higher if its on every imaginable platform out there but you could also just put it on bandcamp and be done with it.
theres so much music available these days that it seems unlikely its generating real revenue if not promoted by a big label or going viral on social media...

Normal people are on Spotify, and if you want to have your music there you must go through a distributor.
added on the 2020-05-12 20:39:56 by lug00ber lug00ber
Been with CDbaby since 2006. Expensive, maybe. But always fair, always fast, not a single problem. AAA customer service.
added on the 2020-05-12 21:07:33 by wertstahl wertstahl
I guess it's also a "simple" way to prevent other people from stealing your music and monetizing it. Protection money, if you will...
I'm wondering if anyone have tried RouteNote. Their free option seems interesting as they just take a 15% of the royalties (that probably will not matter very much unless we got a huge fan base, right?) and also provide free UPC codes. I'm asking because I never tried any of these distributors but I'm considering the many options available. In particular, I wonder about how they allow you to control the use of your music in YouTube. If they allow exceptions so you can mark some channels as "OK" to put your stuff (free of ads, of course) and so on. This info is not always clear on their pages.
added on the 2020-05-12 22:40:18 by ham ham
In my personal experience, as soon as you're in the monetizing and copyright control game, especially youtube, there is no mercy and no discussion about how to use it. I can still post the tunes that are covered by those control mechanisms, but i cannot monetize them. Which would make no sense anyways, because streaming fees are collected for me already.
added on the 2020-05-13 05:54:18 by wertstahl wertstahl
i use routenote for enough records and i recommend it. they are slow approving some things or responding some times, but always within reasonable and always end up responding, and paying on schedule.
added on the 2020-05-13 06:11:00 by psenough psenough
OP: DistroKid is great. not sure what goes on at you but i was never asked for an ID or anything either and their customer service was always very responsive and excellent.

HINT: they react just about immediately on twitter, but i had no issues in email communication either. and sure as hack a real person responded there, not a bot.

there are other alternatives, yeah, but DK has been perfect for me so far, pushed about 7-8 albums/singles there already and will continue.

alas, hope you manage to clear the issue with them
added on the 2020-05-13 09:27:33 by nagz nagz
Quote:
Quote:
is it really worth it to use such services?
i mean of course the chance that someone stumbles across your tracks is probably higher if its on every imaginable platform out there but you could also just put it on bandcamp and be done with it.
theres so much music available these days that it seems unlikely its generating real revenue if not promoted by a big label or going viral on social media...

Normal people are on Spotify, and if you want to have your music there you must go through a distributor.


also, this. ^

when it comes to income from released tunes, bandcamp surpassed everything else by far because nothing beats downloadable losless media and you also get to set your price, but for your own "brand strength" it's pretty nifty to have your stuff up on spotify, itunes etc. :)
added on the 2020-05-13 09:34:03 by nagz nagz
Quote:
i use routenote for enough records and i recommend it. they are slow approving some things or responding some times, but always within reasonable and always end up responding, and paying on schedule.

On that note, when did we have an agreement about monetizing Enough Dubs 2? :)
added on the 2020-05-13 11:10:14 by Gargaj Gargaj
i wasn't even aware you were one of the secret artists on that compilation. probably dipswitch told me at the time and i forgot about it.

agreements to monetization of enough records releases weren't done properly from my behalf: when considering extending to platforms that required minimum payment i assumed artists would be fine with it as long as the label remained non profit and that i didn't have to contact everyone asking for new permissions. i eventually realized my mistake and went back to contact artists and re-confirm stuff, some of which were not happy, others were unreachable. the compilations were some of the releases that never got completely cleared, i eventually decided to remove them from monetization on routenote altogether to avoid further issues but it's a shame that they stop being available on spotify etc for people who use those platforms to find the releases. the compilations remain on our bandcamp with a nominal fee of 1 euro to bypass the free download limits that bandcamp imposes. enough remains non profit with our catalogue free for download, any income is for label costs, any excess is donated to other non profits. artists still have the right to request their releases to not be listed on certain platforms, just need to email me.
added on the 2020-05-13 12:19:38 by psenough psenough
i'm also on that compilation \o/
added on the 2020-05-13 12:25:41 by nagz nagz
Thanks for all the feedback, guys! I'm glad to hear that many of you haven't run into problems with Distrokid so far, that's good. Guess I was unlucky for some reason, maybe if I had contacted them on their home turf (twitter) things would've gone differently. Still, the fact they asked for my photo ID still irks me. I've now moved on and signed up with Rebeat, and so far music submissions have been processed very smoothly (they are not in stores just yet, though). Fingers crossed.

I agree that Bandcamp is by far the best and most hassle-free option to get your music out there quickly, been using them since 2012 and love them! But of course you wouldn't generate air plays from there on other platforms, hence my decision to try other distributors as well. Can't say I'm a big fan of how this whole music distribution thing works on the big platforms, to me it feels a bit like the "hard-working" musician has to sacrifice his/her soul and firstborn child (I don't have any, whew!) to an overbloated machinery of algorithms just to get some fame :/ It's partly the reason why I avoided them for such a long time.

Now I'll patiently wait and see what happens next :)
added on the 2020-05-13 12:28:04 by SunSpire SunSpire
requesting photo id seems standard practice for any company that will have to send you money, they need identity proof. i dont understand why you're so surprised/shocked by that particular detail.
added on the 2020-05-13 12:37:38 by psenough psenough
psenough: No, that's totally fine. But the fact they never got back to me after I had provided it is the odd part. Prior to receiving my ID they stated that albums would progress to stores quickly after having checked my ID. And then nothing happened. I contacted them several more times, with a couple of weeks inbetween each email and they simply didn't respond. It's been two months now and my music still hasn't been processed, it was just sitting there in my account. Understandably I got upset in the end and just wanted to move on.

In order to request a refund at Distrokid for a service not used you need to remove all queued albums and delete your account. I did that, but they never refunded me. It's not about the money really, but they customer service is bad. So bad in fact that I would not trust them with any royalty payouts, if any, in the future. That's just how it is.
added on the 2020-05-13 12:46:48 by SunSpire SunSpire
- they + their
added on the 2020-05-13 12:48:12 by SunSpire SunSpire

login