![]() Doing this yourself could result in a large amount of time spent manually uploading files, artwork and metadata, which is less time making music and being creative.įinally, there’s the issue of ISRC codes, which are the digital barcode for your music. ![]() There’s also the fact that many distributors will upload your music to over 100 platforms on the same date and time. ![]() Spotify toyed with the idea of user uploads, with a beta period that lasted for over a year, but ultimately canned the project in favour of ‘partners’. With correct release dates and information vital to labels and artists, DSPs would far rather hand over that responsibility to third parties, and allow them to take a cut as a result. You might be wondering, why do I need a distributor at all? Can’t I just upload my music to platforms myself, as I do with SoundCloud and Bandcamp? Though many have experimented with the concept, ultimately, DSPs don’t want the headache of dealing with artists directly, which can result in a lot more support questions, missing metadata and artwork and general problems that slow down the well-oiled DSP machine. Some offer extra services such as publishing and YouTube monetisation, while others offer excellent analytics around how to track your music across platforms, demographics and locations. While the destinations will largely remain the same for most distros, how it happens, how easy it is, how fast it happens, how much it costs and what communication and interaction you’ll get on how your music is performing can differ wildly. They’ll then pay out what you’re owed based on the streaming rates of each platform. There are many different distribution companies who take care of different aspects of the process - with varying fees and percentages - but ultimately their job is to take your music, release it on the platforms you want to be released on, and track how people are interacting with that music. There are others like The Orchard and Believe who are pickier about who they let on their platform, but this list is open to anyone, bar AWAL, who we wanted to include as an example of what these types of platforms offer. We’re also largely looking at open distributors that (almost) anyone can use. In the past, distributors would take care of physical releases - CD, tape, vinyl etc - and that’s still the case, but for the purposes of this guide, we’re going to focus on digital distribution only. Digital distribution is the process of releasing your music to various digital streaming platforms (DSPs) and services.
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