hey i just started to see why its delayed my payment from september... its already 3 months... and for my 6k play on one track , i received $0.05 dolar.... its clearly not good.

so im discovering on reddit subs and 2 or 3 videos on youtube like this one:

that they are already scamming people... lets says u are scam spotify with playlist bots... ok.. u r wrong okay okay, but in the video its clearly not an error, and full of BOTS support..

what do u think? did u use distro some time?

 

Hey,

I can't speak of how good Distrokid is or not but I did watch two of this guys videos on his issues with Distrokid and they are complete bullshit.

The guy in that video just doesn't understand U.S. Tax law or U.S. laws in general which is understandable since he isn't based in the United States. The money that was witheld from his earning are required by the U.S. Internal Revenue Services for non-U.S. citizens. This money isn't kept by the company as the company is required to send it to the United States Treasury Department. The way our laws work no company that wants to avoid being sued for giving tax advice will let their low paid customer service employees discuss taxes with a customer which results in copy and paste emails advising the customer to speak to an accountant. If after paying the required income taxes, there is money left over he would have to file paperwork with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to have the remaining funds returned. Without having detailed knowledge of the U.S. tax system the only smart course of action would be to hire and accountant to complete and submit the required paperwork. There was nothing deceptive about the marketing with respect to the 100% and the 30% tax withholding, just the musician's misunderstanding.The maker of this video is just arrogant and misinformed.

There very well may be other reasons to avoid working with Distrokid but the reason stated in the video is not a problem with Distrokid.

FYI....I work in real estate with foreign clients and the tax withholding is and issue that we deal with in our industry as well and it annoys the hell out of clients but we can only follow the tax laws and advise our clients to speak to an accountant for advise. Tax laws sucks here.

Best of luck to you and I hope you find lots of success with your music.

 

6000 plays? Money? Bots?

Look, that is not a number of plays to get you worrying about any money, just be pleased someone cares about your tracks.
And that low royalty has nothing to do with DistroKid it’s about Spotify and their rates, depending on where people are listening.

Probably your payment is late because it’s so little money that they are waiting for it to accumulate and then make the transaction.


And just a recommendation.
Try to read your messages before posting.

 

hey thanks for the reply. but i dont get it... the last transaction him get its like 4k usd less... with other name company, thats suspicious if i have to pay the tax okay... but that its not like ... evade taxes??? maybe im and ignorant about this

thx for the music succes thing, i hope u do it great too ♥

 

yes ... bots... when i saw my stats on spotify one day gets that plays... then.. nevermore.. of course i know i have to do the "marketing" but its people getting banned for this and the reasone is: "please try another distributor, your banned"...........
u know my fear its not the money, its to build up something that u know it cost so much time, effort, and money, and turn out one day, you have nothing because... "you need to try another distributor your banned"... wtffffff
i read my msg dud, are u right? im not here to fight, im trying to figure out if its just those cases were a coincidence or whatever ... or much people are experienced this lately... im not found this video only.. u can do ur research if u dont believe me.

 

I do not think you are incorrect, based on what I have seen others discussing. The one lengthy post discussing escrow about Real Estate transactions and how it pertains to you selling some songs on the internet is "interesting" as well.

You see this sort of stuff unrelated to Real Estate transactions, often with SEO/Spam silliness. But it is a typical indication of a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme. (and *real* spamming, aka bulking).

Your taxes? You are not an employee of this company (in the US). You are doing work that will result in you needing to file a form 10-99 for any income derived from sales/income on the internet over $600.00. Just like you do with Reverb.com. There is no reason they should be withholding any funds, other than any minimum $ amount they will pay out. Independent Contractors paying or not paying their taxes has nothing to do with the company they do they work for. Their only obligation is to send you a Form 10-99 for you to report your income with. If you do not pay what you owe and get a lien or jail time, how is that their business? It isn't.

Go on any poker site and ask any cash games player what funds they have held in escrow.

My comments are not based on any experience I have with the company you are discussing. But the concerns you have listed are very common symptoms of a scam, and I do not think your concerns are unrealistic ones.

From Google:

The essential difference between the two frauds is that a Ponzi scheme generally only requires investment in something from its victims, with promised returns at a later pay date. Pyramid schemes, unlike Ponzi schemes, usually offer a victim the opportunity to “make” money by recruiting more people into the scam.

 

Last edited: Dec 13, 2022

Regarding DK:
You are worrying way to much over nothing.
You have just began distributing your music, have no followers and chances are your music journey is pretty new too.

You have signed up with DK, like hundreds of thousands of people have done around the globe. Fine

Now focus on making music and getting it out there. In a year from now all your fears will have dissipated and you will have some experience to know if you want to continue with DK or change to something else.


Regarding your writing:
yes...weird...when i try and read some your its ...a me ss. but you know wtffffff?! ma-kes me wonder i f yu communicate L-Ike thIs on a:dayliy basis. ffs, what IS point?!


.

 

I wasn't discussing real estate transaction, I was commenting on the video the OP posted about revenue generated through Distrokid being streams or sales.

You are not a contractor for Distrokid either. Your statement is blatantly false. Distrokid is just a service provider. As a publisher YOU hire Distrokid to provide to YOU distribution services which results in YOU earning revenue. If you are not a U.S. citizen or company than a portion of the revenue is withheld and sent to the U.S. Treasury to pay the taxes YOU are required to pay on the earned revenue. If the amount withheld and sent to the U.S. Treasury Department you have to ask the Internal Revenue Service for a refund.

 

Yes, if you make a bunch of money our government will want you to pay taxes on the money. The government doesn't want to come to your country to collect the money so they make companies keep some of the money which is sent to the government to cover the taxes you owe. There are many reasons why the amount of money sent to the government is more than you actually owe the government. However, you will need to file paperwork with the government requesting a refund which most people need the services of an accountant to complete the paperwork. You should also keep track of all of your marketing expenses and distribution fees as they may increase the amount of your refund.

As other have said, Spotify rates are very, very low which can explain the small amount in your account. Discoverability on Spotify is also very difficult. You will need to create social profiles on other platforms that have links directing potential fans to your Spotify listing and perhaps one of your digital download merchants Distrokid lists your song. Have marketing send people to social profiles which capture the person as a fan/follower then have links on your posts and profiles send fans links to stream or download your songs. Finally, lots of random people on the internet sell listings on Spotify playlists that they run as a marketing tactic but most of those playlist offerings are scams and a waste of money.

 

Wake TF up people.. Spotify is part owner of Distrokid. I see many of these comments speaking as if they are separate entities when they are not.

Of course how would you know this when they don't advertise it. And why would they when that talentless thief hack Daniel Ek is taking royalties off you from both streaming and distribution (and ad sales, data farming and selling to the highest bidders etc., none of which money is shared with you) this is just one tiny example of how shady both of these companies are and one more reason to never ever hand over your music, rights and royalties to these shysters.

I swear musicians are the most gullible gluten for punishment dumb shits on the planet. If this were literally any other industry or sector of society there would be strikes, boycotts, riots, you name it.. but no, this is music, its fun, lets have fun allowing big tech and their govt cronies to destroy our non-major label livelihoods yay! Get a Fn clue people

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2022

hi ! thansk for this response... clarify me a lot !!! gonna think about this cause im not from US, im on south america. thanks !

 

hi, thanks for the response.
im worrying cause i dont want to build somthing that can be 3 years long and then suddenly BANNED. hope u understand me.
i really want to make this work and work with people who take this seriously, im tired of fakes compromises etc.
im not with distrokid anymore.

about my writing, sorry for bother u, not the intention but, its the way i like to write, thanks for the response again !

 

hhmm... okay gonna see it late, thanks for the response !

 

yes agree about the playlist scam thing. thanks for the response !! some things i didnt know about it are here, thanks

 

wow nice data here... gonna check this "daniel ek" never heard or known about him. he is the (may i say?) the owner of distrokid? or a partner who do the "dirty job" ? or something? thanks for the response.

EDIT: I SEARCH HIM !! NOW MAKES SENSE... spotify in the 2018 tried to get some kind of system to the users upload their music directly with them.. but now i see it clear... if he its partner of distrokid for example... its better cause if the problem appears... woops, "I have nothing to do with that company" haha ,deemmmn, such a devil one

 

Oh it only gets much much worse. Look at his history. Daniel Ek's entire career and half-trillion dollar fortune was built on thievery and devaluing the independent entertainment industry. Spotify was built by uTorrent/Napster pirates, using pirated music to blackmail the major labels into jumping onboard. Create the virus and supply the cure. Genius.

Every time you stream a song there or hand over your own music, rights and royalties to these crooks, you're shooting yourself in the foot and contributing to the demise of the indie professional music industry.

He'll happily pay $200 million dollars for a single talk show podcast (one of many), fork out tens of billions of dollars annually for high street offices, executive expenses, low position $100k+ / high position $500k+ employee salaries etc., and then have gall to claim $0.0005 per stream is too high for the people who actually make the music and bring the user traffic in for the ad sales and data farming to make his whole scam run - and causing Spotify to run at a loss. WTF a loss?! Yeah right! What a pathetic joke.

Look at the stats and who is making all the money. How a 1/3 of the music never gets any streams and 90% of all artists earn $0 - $10 per year. How the top 2% are sponsored major label artists each raking in hundreds of millions, if not billions annually, while everyone else makes nothing, even popular indie artists with millions of streams are only getting thousands, at most. You cant make this shit up.

Moral to the story, do yourself and everyone else a favor, including fans who love the music we make and constantly want more (after all it costs money to make music and we have to eat and pay rent too), avoid both Distrokid and Spotify like the plague.


I implore you to do research and find a 100% FREE distribution method. Don't pay these types of quick-cash-grab middlemen shysters for what amounts to you doing all the work and them doing automated nothings, except of course controlling and taking your brand, fees, royalties and user data.

If you absolutely must waste money on a distributer, then at the very least choose one that A. Has a long established track record with reputable artists and labels and has hit releases in your genre B. Doesn't charge any fees C. Doesn't make any money unless you do - meaning they actually have to do some work, promote their artists and releases (i.e., they EARN their 15% royalty percentage!).

 

dud thanks for all this data... but.. are you serious? daaaamn, such a info !!! well.. for me its a big surprise... and i love to know it.
never though there was ex pirats wtfff , they become greedy or something..
hey i just cancel my acc on distro few days ago... but now it makes me wonder... how the hell can i avoid spotify? im chating with a local distribuitor, which it charges me in my local coin. and for my surprise its cheaper than distrokid.. and distrokid its already cheap.
its hard that can exist a 100% free distributor.. already do my homework and all charges something... or the free ones are too limited..
the one that im gonna try just need 7% of my royalties, nothing else more. iguess its very good deal. youtube content id included ! its really a good offer.. i guess
do you have something to recommend me?? pls let me know and thanks for all the explanation !!