Distrokid told me to find another distributor
Since the end of May 2019 I've been a customer of Distrokid. At first I just wanted to try it out so I uploaded 5 tracks just to see what happens and forgot about it. But since mid-November I got serious thanks to seeing the success my friend @contrabourdon had there and I've been uploading my organ music (and occasionally @laputis' too) to Distrokid daily and saw my stats increase every week dramatically.
But just around Christmas 2019 something changed. I saw a lot of yellow tracks on my dashboard which meant they are still processing. For a few days that is OK. Maybe for a week or two. But nothing changed even after 3 weeks.
So I wrote the following message to Distrokid support:
Hello,
I've noticed that my recent 100+ tracks of mine stopped processing and are marked yellow for some reason (they are not in any stores either) for 3 weeks now. Earlier they turned green quite quickly, that's why I've started worrying.
Thanks for your help!
I had to open a couple of support tickets but here's what they finally wrote:
Hi,
Hope you are well.
We've been notified by stores and streaming services that one or more of your releases has been rejected due to editorial discretion.
Unfortunately, stores are no longer accepting releases from you via DistroKid. You’ll need to try another distributor for future releases.
Please understand that DistroKid is unable to assist with reversing this. We have no other information or context, and we are unable to get involved or take sides when this occurs. We’re just the messenger, passing along this info to you in hopes you find it helpful.
We understand that this email is probably frustrating to you, and we regret having to be the messenger of bad news. However, we hope this email is helpful, and we thank you for your understanding.
We wish you the best of luck moving forward with another distributor.
Then I asked:
Did they state the reason for rejecting my tracks?
And their final response was:
I'm very sorry about this, but unfortunately, this is all of the information that we have. Please try another distributor.
Maybe the founder of Distrokid (/u/pudjam666 on Reddit) could know what's going on? I wasn't breaking any rules. I didn't get any warnings. It's weird. This is a really lousy customer support. If I hadn't pushed through with my tickets, I wouldn't have found out even that I was rejected by the stores.
Unfortunately my trust with Distrokid has shaken because what are the chances ALL the stores would reject me at the same time? Something's smells fishy here...
On the other hand what if it's true and if I move to another distributor only to be rejected again by the stores and streaming platforms? Now I'm worried about my YouTube channel too.
I have done nothing wrong. Didn't steal anybody's content. Just used my own recordings with my personal playing either my own compositions and organ improvisations or works by other composers properly cited.
So much for putting your trust on centralized platforms... Can the need for censorship resistant decentralized blockchains like Steem be any more apparent than this?
Check out my Secrets of Organ Playing books:
https://amazon.com/author/vidaspinkevicius
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At least your current tracks stay there if you continue with the subscription. I’d monitor stats. You’ll need to be careful not to double up tracks now with the new distributor. This is the problem with centralised services.
I've read on Reddit a complaint that Distrokid has been deleting a lot of users accounts and blocking people from accessing their earnings.
I can see what you feel. You have a lot of sunk costs with Distrokid (at least emotionally) with the spike of your stats recently).
Very true. I hope I don't suffer a similar fate... !ENGAGE 25
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Why can't he double up tracks?
I'm not sure of the implication of Spotify having two copies of the same track on the artist page. Anyway, if it did allow it, it would look redundant.
ah, I understand. I was wondering if there was some kind of rule to say if it is uploaded to distrokid, it could appear somewhere else.
Yes, it would appear on 30+ other streaming platforms. This is not a problem. But appearing twice on the same platform would be rejected. Tey don't even allow the same title, even if it's a different piece. Like a fugue but by two different composers. Since they don't allow using composer's names in titles, such as Fugue (Composer A) and Fugue (Composer B), we have to name the piece somewhat differently.
By the way, that's an indication that composers and songwriters are undervalued on these platforms.
The platforms don't care about the contributors, as long as they are willing to contribute. One of the benefits of Steem for an investing contributor is, one more likely cares about the content producers also.
Absolutely.
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