I read some articles that some music distributors banned their customers. You can't even contact them. In this case, what about my songs? Can I distribute them with other platforms? Or do they take the right of all my songs?
I uploaded my music videos on Youtube and all of them are claimed copyright infringement. But my distributor says, it's ok and it means that they work properly. They also say that I have the copyright for all my songs.

 

Since the moment you give your music with cdbaby, freyr, juno, beatport, spotify etc you cant then use it freely on socials: they start having an exclusive on distribution -yes- that’s the way it works. What you can do is talk to someone at their office to whitelist your youtube/instagram/facebook account and hope they understand the problem.

This is precisely why I stopped distributing my music with those companies, my music is mine and nobody have to tell me what I can and cannot do with it. I’m using Bandcamp now

 

Does this apply to Distrokid? 8 mean the Youtube thing?

 

I don't mean that they lie to you or are cheaters, but... It's not important what they say. What is written in agreements is important. You signed somethng, ticked off "I agree" etc. Read it eventually.

Sad but many people don't read what they sign.

 

when you sign up to. one of these distro sites Spotify and so on you have to agree to their TOS "terms of service" before you lawyer up or just say screw them you might wanna read that tos. in there will be any material rights to songs. and im quite sure there are different levels of agreements. and unless your on a label you. only can get the one that. they get copy rights to. your music in exchange for them letting you post. your music on their servers and platform. As this is a new frontier still the ramifications of a service going under and what happens to the rights to. songs is a grey area. if your getting blocked its basically saying your music is not worth there time to deal with. you and all those songs will get shelved and prolly never see the light of day again. its how it worked back in the day. label closes for some reason and the masters all get locked away with. the rights. happened to my friends band... signed to flip record ( bostones llimp Bizkits first label) flip bsnkruted themselves on. bizcut. friends record got sold in the chapter 11 and only 20 years later through their current label helping them were they able to get the rights and the masters back. so good luck

 

This situation is exactly the same as being employed by a company, where your work is not your own and the profit is born by the sweat and blood of the employee who will see minimal return for their time and effort. Working for "The Man" is a black hole in the ground just waiting for your last breath.

 

that sounds awful. I mean...not owning your tracks after making them with the hard work etc.....
dang

 

Although, nobody is going to read pages of documents with these little lowercase letters on it for an agreement, but that could be a big drawback in the end. If something happens in a bad way, then most of the time you have no rights to fight for, because then they will point you to the agreement.

I do know why companies are spending time on this when nobody is going to read it anyway, but companies that are working like this may be tackled from me. When there are any important requirements, then just make it easy to read.

 

Why would a distributor ban a customer?...

 

but there are dozens of established ''hip hop'' artists which release on spotify and youtube and everywhere

i guess there are different contracts...
contracts made by their labels

 

Would be interesting if, at the bottom of the post, you added a direct link to your music (Youtube, Soundcloud, Spotify, Bandcamp etc.), in this way we could listen to your music/works...

 

Last edited: Jun 17, 2020

pure Marxism

 

My distributor is Amuse and they said that it is fine to leave it, but they can make it whitelist if I want. I'm not sure if it is a good idea to do that. I don't have so many subscribers nor viewers so far. Is it necessary to do that?
I also use Bandcamp, but have zero fans. Music promotion is super harder than creating songs.

 

I read the agreement carefully twice before I signed up. It definitely said, "The copyright belongs to the author."

 

I'm sorry to your friend to hear that. Then is there any alternative way? Any company can do that, so whom can we trust? Anyways, I'm still ok because only very few people know my band so far. LOL

 

Everyone here is speculating without having all the facts. Missing from this conversation is the reasons/basis for a distributor banning an artist or in better terms the basis for the suspension or termination of the artist's use of the distributor's site and/or services. A suspension is not the same as a termination. Moreover, did the artist entered into a sync licensing agreement with the distributor? For example, with CD Baby Sync Licensing, you are granting CD Baby the rights to license your music worldwide. You do retain ownership of all of your copyrights. However, you are granting non-exclusive rights for synchronization so that your music can be used for syncs in tv, advertising, video games and film without your direct approval. Even if you are suspended, CD Baby still has the rights granted by you. On the other hand, termination as the name implies puts an end to the artist/distributor relationship. Finally, one thing to be aware of, when signing all these agreements, is the clause that deals with Dispute Resolution. Almost every distributor makes mandatory binding arbitration a contract provision, CD Baby is not an exception. In other words, your claim is heard by an arbitrator instead of a judge within the court system, and in some cases you don't even have the right to appeal the decision. Simply put, you are waiving your right to sue.

 

accurate as usual. You also added details I didn't know about. I am even more proud of my choice to prevent these jackals from managing my music

 

my advice is DIY most people only help artist top help themselves and they will scuse my language fuck. you over every chance they get. with. the internet and things like Patreon and so on doing it yourself is possible

 

One of the first things that the artist needs to understand is that while we may all love music, some of us are in this business primarily to make money, not just out of love , and passion. In a perfect world, this difference would be of mutual benefit to all parties involved but we know that this world is far from perfect, therefore, as in any business venture, people from both sides will try to take advantage of one another. This include artists stealing from another artist. Indeed, labels, producers, engineers, distributors, managers, etc, can fall victim to artists just as much as artists find themselves being taken advantage of. Accordingly, it is up to each party to proceed with caution, in order to avoid ending up committed to a bad contract or as eloquently stated by @evolasme "getting fucked." If possible, do what I always do: hire a lawyer who specializes in entertainment law. It is money well spent. In the long run it pays off many times more. If you don't have the money to hire a lawyer, there is GOOGLE, and forums such as this. Signing a binding contract should not be done on impulse, without first examining all available options. In sum, being signed to a label, distributor, or publisher, can be as good as it can be bad. Do your homework.

 

@evolasme has mentioned a very interesting scenario. The bankruptcy scenario is one in which the artist gets fucked twice. It is one that every artist should be aware of prior to signing any contract.
The problem with the masters takes place because of the interplay between bankruptcy and copyright laws. In these cases new artists transfer the ownership of the copyright along with all of the exclusive rights of ownership to the label; and later in the bankruptcy proceedings the trustee rejects the recording contract. These two events effectively turn the artist into an unsecured creditor. Therefore, the label no longer owes any royalty payments to the artist. Moreover, the trustee will sell the copyrights to the artists’ albums. The new owner of the copyright now can commercially exploit the artist's music without having to pay royalties to the artist.