DistroKid – Page 2

I am an independent artist using distrokid as my music distributor, and also collect royalties. On September 10th i requested to withdraw the royalties they owed me (*** USD) and even received a confirmation email On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 8:26 AM DistroKid wrote: ***A few days later I looked at my bank tab on distrokid to see if they processed my payment and i notice that all my income numbers have been cleared out as if i never made a dime. No explanation provided. I emailed them and answered 4 days later with a copy pasted message accusing me of fraudulent stream and refuse to provide explanation. My songs are still on streaming platforms and they are still collecting my money and refuse to pay me. They are stealing.

I uploaded a song to Distrokid to be released on all platforms specified in a screenshot below. Since I am a new user, I requested new accounts to be set up on these platforms to associate the song with myself. However, my song is either not on the platforms at all or associated with another singer's account. I previously filed an edit request on April 26 for the song which still has not been processed. I reached out to customer service multiple times but they have not resolved the issue and told me they cannot do anything until the request is processed. It has already been 2 months and they cannot even provide a status of when it will be complete. So I asked for them to take my song down/stop the request so I can go to a different distributor with better customer support. However, they cannot even take my song down. I would like for them to manually stop the request and take my song down and provide a refund for the musician plus membership I am paying for. Thank you.

I have been a subscriber of DistroKids music distribution services since December , and now as of August, and September 25th, DistroKid has falsely marked me for apparent Fraudulent activity regarding their terms of service. I have made contact with their support team many times to get this issue resolved; in return I have received zero evidence, or concern about the accusations they have stated. DistroKid has deleted the currency amassed within my bank(Totaling $3,770), and has disabled my account, along with all my work associated with it. I have contacted *** and ***(the platforms where my music has been published), and they have all responded with the statement that no such claims of fraud had been tied to my work, and that the issue has been enacted by DistroKid themselves. DistroKid has been trying to limit my ability to contact them, and blatantly ignores me when i do manage to get in contact. I now have no other way left to resolve this.

I had used Distrokid for nine months as the pricing was very good - a once-a-year payment to upload as much content as you like. It also had more features at the time than some of the other distributors couldn't offer such as instant access to Spotify and Apple Music for artists. But ever since they have been cracking down on 'streaming fraud', they have harshly punished innocent artists who have dared to actually promote themselves and compete in the music industry by wiping their entire discography off of all stores, halting any future releases and worst of all: withholding any future royalties by disabling their Distrokid bank account and setting all past and present royalties to zero. They did this all without warning and with completely no communication until I had to browse past the "we don't actually want to be contacted" Contact page. The only warning I got was for only ONE of my releases for "editorial discretion" when I was preparing my next set of releases all spaced o...

The date of this issue started on November 25 I received a paymenty from Distrokid on October for a small amount of $430 which I have no complaints about. However, for November, I was suppossed to get paid a massive amount around $5,000. When I contacted Distrokid asking where my earnings are, they said that *** is holding them due to suspicious activity. After contacting ***, they told me that my account was in good standing and that there are no red flags on my account. After bringing this up to Distrokid I received no response.I invested hard time and work into my music and Distrokid wants to take that away from me. This is not right. I paid my yearly subscription fee yet they do not want to hold their end of the bargain to simply roll over my well deserved earnings over to me.The business committed to giving me 100% of earnings and royalties, however, they have failed to do so when they noticed a large payment going through. Distrokid is not interested in solving this problem at all, and is speaking by email as if "it is what it is."I have spend money on advertising and spent countless days and nights preparing my music. I should not be treated this way.

Over two weeks ago I asked them to remove all of my music from all stores online.After about a week/or two of waiting I reached out to a customer service representative, and received a response from a woman named bey, who asked me to send the links to each individual store, which I did. I sent over 11 links from *** search that I had found. Instead of clicking on the links and helping me resolve my issue, she told me that I had to click on each link and send another link? I was like? How can you not see the links I sent you? All she had to do was literally type my name and album name (which I gave her) in the *** search bar and they would all pop up. There were over 10 still active.They asked for the links for each store (which should have already been removed at this point) it's been more than long enough, and now my music isn't showing on distrokid (since I had deleted my track) but they are STILL on *** search, and part of the stores they are in are showing my music under a different artist? They need to remove my music as I requested and cancel all services they are trying to *** from me (if any at this point) I do not want my music out in the public anymore.

I have not been paid my royalties. I have contacted Distrokid many times about this issue. They have been giving me the run around, every reason why they can't pay me. A lot of the money is from Spotify. They claim they can not see that Spotify owes me money but turns around and says they can see that Spotify is holding money. I don't understand how they can see the holding money part but can see that they owe me money doesn't make sense. They said I have to contact Spotify myself. Which I did and Spotify says Distrokid has to contact the Reporting Team at Spotify and they be happy to work with them. I went and told Distrokid this and they said they can't contact Spotify. Saying they can't do a counter claim, I was not asking for a counter claim. I clear stated in many emails that I just wanted them to reach out to the Reporting Team and ask about the withholdings. Distrokid went back and fourth with me to only say they can't do counter claims. I don't understand why they can't reach out to Spotify when they said they could. Also I don't understand why they don't get that I'm not asking for a counter claim. I am owed hundreds of dollars. I would like to be able to clear this up very soon.

I had used Distrokid for nine months as the pricing was very good - a once-a-year payment to upload as much content as you like. It also had more features at the time than some of the other distributors couldn't offer such as instant access to Spotify and Apple Music for artists. But ever since they have been cracking down on 'streaming fraud', they have harshly punished innocent artists who have dared to actually promote themselves and compete in the music industry by wiping their entire discography off of all stores, halting any future releases and worst of all: withholding any future royalties by disabling their Distrokid bank account and setting all past and present royalties to zero. They did this all without warning and with completely no communication until I had to browse past the "we don't actually want to be contacted" Contact page. The only warning I got was for only ONE of my releases for "editorial discretion" when I was preparing my next set of releases all spaced out from each other. This apparently meant that store "didn't want my single at this time". Nothing mentioned about my Distrokid bank being closed and all my future royalties and discography being at risk of being halted and wiped from existence until I had contacted them only to receive a copy-and-paste response. This all conveniently happened when I was close to 1 million monthly streams with them. I have been in many user curators Spotify playlists, have made well-targeted Facebook advertising to first world countries and have even had several Spotify editorial placements with the notable one being on "Lo-Fi Beats". To be called a fraud for getting genuine listeners to my song is absolutely insulting and withholding these royalties that I am absolutely owed for is just straight-up criminal. I had even sent proof straight from my Spotify for Artists account and asked them which of these streams/playlists are 'fraudulent'. No answer. Nothing. Any further attempts at contacting them feel like I'm shouting at a brick wall. Sadly, many people have also been affected by these false accusations of fraud. Take a look at their Twitter and see the people shouting at them that they can't access their royalties. Check the unofficial Reddit help desk and you see people with the exact same problem. This is absolutely two-faced behavior and dissatisfaction is an absolute understatement these people have with Distrokid. Also, Distrokid is blaming stores (namely Spotify) for the takedown of musicians' songs, but when they actually go and contact Spotify, they actually tell you that Distrokid is the one making all the takedown requests, proving that Distrokid is carrying out this shady rogue behavior. You may have a good relationship with Distrokid now, but once you actually start earning money for yourself using their service, they will take it all for themselves in a second and try to wipe your songs from existence all under the guise of 'streaming fraud'. They are actually punishing artists making a genuine attempt at competing in the industry and blaming you for an issue that is next to impossible to avoid. They are turning into another scam music company that everyone should avoid at all costs. I've now come to the conclusion that if you are using Distrokid just now, your music is not safe, your royalties are not safe, and if you rely on it, your livelihood is not safe. It is time to switch distributors before they come after you.