r/MusicDistribution

Distrokid Told Me that distrokid youtube royalty for July and August will come on 15th of October including vevo video royalty stay tuned guys hope this helps to you

With all the recent DistroKid issues, particularly the YouTube royalty delays, I know many artists are considering switching distributors. However, there's something important you should understand before transferring your catalog: YouTube may be the platform most affected by the move.

We recently transferred several releases from distributors we were paying annual fees to maintain, despite having only one or two releases with them. Everything went smoothly on Spotify and Apple Music, and the music is now available on YouTube through the new distributor.

But there's one major difference: Our YouTube Art Track views are gone.

Unlike Spotify and Apple Music, where streaming history can generally be preserved through proper catalog matching, YouTube handles Art Track transfers differently.

According to YouTube's official documentation, Art Tracks generally cannot be transferred between music partners. Instead, the new distributor must redeliver the recordings, creating entirely new Art Tracks with new video IDs and view counts starting at zero. The previous views cannot be transferred.

You can keep the same ISRC, UPC, audio, and metadata, but that won't preserve the original Art Track's public view count.

YouTube does explain that maintaining identical identifiers helps preserve placements in algorithmic playlists, user-created playlists, and libraries within YouTube Music. So this doesn't necessarily mean losing all your YouTube Music history or audience connections.

There's also another potential issue: YouTube warns that removing or unlisting the original Art Track can affect the Shorts creation count associated with its sound page.

For our label, losing views on releases with little or no traction isn't a major concern. However, we have an Art Track in our catalog with approximately 3 million views. Transferring that release would mean losing the public view count that demonstrates its historical success.

And that's not something I'm willing to sacrifice just to change distributors.

My advice is to evaluate your catalog individually before transferring everything. A song with 500 views is one thing. A song with hundreds of thousands or millions of views is an entirely different situation.

If your main concern is DistroKid's YouTube payment delays, switching distributors might resolve your future distribution concerns, but it won't necessarily preserve everything you've already built on YouTube.

This isn't a DistroKid-specific problem. It's how YouTube handles Art Track redelivery between music partners.

There may be exceptions depending on the transfer method, so ask your receiving distributor whether they support YouTube's SentOnBehalfOf DDEX process before moving high-performing releases.

Official YouTube documentation:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12732257?hl=en

If (like me) you're thinking about changing distributor, and if youtube is your main source of income and exposure (royalties, views, playlists, videos etc..) YOU MUST KNOW that you will lose all the views and comments already attached to your Art Tracks. There is no way around that.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12732257?hl=en

And this obviously will greatly damaged not only your incomes, but your image (the reasons why I'm not ready to move my catalog - It could mean losing 30–40 million accumulated views, ten years of playlist placements, and hunderds of listener comments gone… an absolute nightmare.).
Of course, this doesn't keep you from uploading your future production through another distributor.

So now you know ;o)

Hi team!

I'm looking to return to production after quite a break. I got experience working with two small distributors, but it was years ago and doesn't seem to be relevant these days. Responsive and quick support is the deciding factor for me, since pretty much every distributor on the market meets my other criteria in functionality. I'd really appreciate it if you could share your experiences with different distributors, support-wise. Go, no-go, and why. Many thanks!

Guys whose here had their Bank account set to 0$ without prior notice.

Last time I tried to email them on what happen but they said that on their end my money was okay and safe.

Then, I tried to ask them what happened. But prior to these I got copyright email on two of my songs, but after a few days they told me that the copyright was lifted and reinstated but my songs are not back till now.

When I tried to ask them why my bank account has set to 0$ this was their reply

Hi,

While withdrawals are paused, the Bank page shows $0.

Withdrawals are paused while the royalties tied to the affected content are reviewed. They will be re-enabled once that review is complete.

There is no timeline for when the withdrawals review will be completed, but rest assured that our team is working on it.

Best,

Joel

DistroKid Support

Is there anyone related on this or it was just me.

Thanks guys!

Im just a guy planning to release my album on streaming platforms. My stage name has already been used by a few people on streaming platforms. Is there a way I can GUARANTEE my music will release under MY artist profile?

I know I’m an idiot for this, but I just renewed my DistroKid subscription. I tried to migrate my entire catalogue to another platform beforehand, but every single track kept getting flagged with automated copyright errors like "You have already uploaded [Track Name] - [Artist Name]."

Because of this mess, I panicked and ended up paying for 2-3 different distributors trying to sort it out, and now I have no idea what to do.

Now i am scare that my music is at risk or what also if by chance my music gets takes down which i am lucky hasnt till now will i be able to upload same song with same irsc ?

Hey guys, kinda freaking out. Just randomly checked my Spotify for artists app and noticed a whole album was missing. This album was released in 2019 & was completely written and recorded by me and my friends. There’s no AI whatsoever (other than the logic drummer from back then), no covers, no samples, just normal songs.

Why would this have been deleted?? The only thing I can think is that a few months after we released it in 2019 I posted a TikTok and it got a bunch of views which then led the song to get traction on Spotify. It had been pretty consistently getting streams from Discovery Weekly and user playlists since then and the last I checked the single was at over 800,000 streams.

I’m just really concerned that we’re going to lose those numbers and playlist placement and I can’t think of a reason why this would’ve been removed. I got absolutely no communication.

Hi everyone, as you know, the July and August reports were delayed. It’s now early October, and we still haven’t received any reports. This situation is quite frustrating, but I’d like to share my own theories with you...

First of all, I don’t think the delay is entirely YouTube’s fault; I suspect there might be an issue with DistroKid’s systems as well. However, I’m certain YouTube has sent the reports because I have friends who’ve received payments from other distributors I use.

If the reports have been sent, here’s my theory on why they haven’t been processed yet: After all, DistroKid is the largest distributor used by independent artists worldwide and has the most artists on its platform, and there’s two months’ worth of data to process—which will naturally take some time.

I don’t think this process has anything to do with AI or lawsuits (I don’t release AI-generated songs). In any case, other platforms are continuing to pay out. If anyone receiving payments for AI songs from other platforms could comment below, I’d appreciate it.

I hope—and I expect—that we’ll have the reports by October 10 at the latest.

sent a withdraw request 8 days ago. still pending. am i the only one?

Recently logged into TuneCore after a long period of inactivity and was prompted to confirm my identity. I did that only to find that about a dozen releases were no longer even showing up. It says I have no releases. I removed them from Spotify a while back but never intended for them to be removed from other platforms. Has anybody else experienced this? If so, what did you do? I can't figure out how to directly contact support anymore.

Hey everyone. Like many of you, I'm completely fed up with DistroKid freezing YouTube payouts for July and August. Their support is absolutely useless, just sending copy-paste replies.

I’m seriously considering moving my catalog to TuneCore.

For those who made the switch: Is TuneCore actually better with YouTube payouts and customer support? And what is the safest way to move tracks via ISRC codes without losing my streaming history while my previous royalties are still stuck in DistroKid's pipeline?

Thanks!