Hello fellow musicians and happy xmas to you all!

After much fiddling around and hesitations, I finally decided to self-release a LP of sorts with tracks written and mixed in the last 6 or 7 years by myself that I feel have a certain contiguity with each other.
I plan to release it on bandcamp under a 'name your price' plan, but I am really ignorant about the legal undergoings in the business. And so... i have some questions for the more knowledgeable members here:
a. Do I need to contact a digital distribution service ( like DistroKid, for instance) prior to publishing on bandcamp?
b. Do I need isrc codes for my tracks as I'd like to retain full rights on my music when played on any platform - digital or not? Is bandcamp going to take care of that aspect once I upload my tracks there? Or do I need to contact some other service?

What's the pro way to go when self releasing tracks of your own?

P.S. 1. Just to inhibit any unnecessary chattering..., I do not want to deal with a label this time. I do believe that this day and age, labels are somehow obsolete and a thing of the past. In the past I released stuff through labels myself under different aliases and genres, but now... no A&R for me! A good promotion platform is all that is needed... and again... your suggestions will be appreciated.
P.S. 2. If of any relevance, the genre I'm into this time is a sort of ambient electronic with hints of dub, deep dubstep, lofi experimental and breakbeat - a hybrid inspired but not limited to acts like Boards of Canada, Leftfield, Lorn which are all musicians I love and listen to compulsively.

Hope I've made myself clear and that the post falls under the right category. If not, I kindly ask the mods to correct it. Bless!

 

Bump! C'mon, you guys, I know it's holiday time, but really... no one has any input on these matters? Should I bug off and do my own research? Guess I'm already on it

 

Don't know haven't released yet but it should be in their terms. But you'd prob need the same isrc codes would prob have to be the same?
You've had a few days since you posted what can you tell us?

 

The Decent samples guy has a video about this. But then again, there are guys talking about distrokid where they say distro stole money from them, that they even talked to the founder, and he´s a fkcing moron. One guy even got banned from Distrokid... hahaha... take your poison mate...

 

I register my works with ASCAP. SoundCloud says my original works become copyrighted after I post them, something about a dated post. I suspect something similar for BandCamp, but it should be in their fine print or services offered somewhere.

 

I recommend posting the music for free everywhere you can, noone really buys albums anymore other than from the few very established artists, they might buy a shirt but only if they love you first

 

OK... thanks for the feedback! I started to wonder what happened to the friendly community over here for a second or two...

What I found so far is that
1. isrc codes are a must if you plan to distribute music in any form, commercially speaking - streaming included.
2. distribution and selling are two different beasts. On one hand there are sites like Bandcamp which enable one to personally sell his music worldwide. On the other, there are distributors as distrokid or cdbaby which are able to get one's tracks to major digital platforms like itunes and spotify. the artist retains full rights to his music and can do both things... sell and distribute for streaming.
SO basically the steps to follow once my tracks are mastered and shit is to get isrc codes for them. Then I could place them to bandcamp and, if so I wish, to spotify and other platforms.

Now... are there people here with bandcamp accounts and with tracks on spotify and all? Could they confirm my findings? What's the personal experience with these aspects of the business?

 

I would do a little research into spotify and itunes if i were you.
the reason i say this is because i came across a video recently( this year) of a lawyer/producer/artist(?) in the USA giving a talk to independent artists about how the likes of Spotify were not giving the artist their due money because spotify were not recording accurately( if at all) what tracks were being played and thus who they owe money to. the exception being the bigger artists who have money to hire managers and lawyers to go after spotify. Also there was a mention that under US law you didnt have the right to say no to spotify to use your music because you want to negotiate better terms rather than the piss poor pennies they were giving( but keeping a big chunk for themselves).

I am interested to see how you get on, if only to understand the mechanics of this.

If you are looking to make a living out of this, then you would really need to research well because we all know the music industry has a history of ripping off artists.

Assuming someone hasn't already done this, then a how to/ dummies guide to releasing music without getting ripped off would be a nice thing to have on this forum...

best of luck to you

 

Distrokid is a digital distributor, which propagates your files to sales platforms, such as iTunes, and to streaming services, such as Spotify. You can tell Distrokid to which you want your music to be distributed. It costs $20 (?) a year, which is a modest investment. Bear in mind that different sales platforms yield different royalty rates from sales; streaming services yield next-to-nought. Soundcloud is good for self-publicity. Don't suppose for a minute that people discover new music on iTunes or Spotify, however. People go there for what they already know about.

Bandcamp is a sales platform to which you upload the music yourself. There are other such platforms, but I cannot recommend any. I can barely recommend Bandcamp beyond "it is what it is." Bear in mind that any track(s) playable on the page are also downloadable (as low-bitrate streaming .MP3) via a browser plug-in or download client (i.e., Jdownloader 2), so you would effectively be giving it away, although a lot of people still haven't caught on to these methods. Making a sampler-medley of about a minute of each of the songs and posting it alone is one option to prevent giving it all away (be sure to upload this file last).

I myself had problems with Distrokid – mainly, with the dumb functionaries there who handle the submissions, who contended with the formats of the titles of my songs and albums. For instance, I had the word "compilation" in a parenthetical subtitle, and one dumb functionary rejected it because "compilations are collections of songs by different artists," whereas all the songs were collected from my various albums. Never mind that I had distributed it through Distrokid with the identical title, previously. Then there is the 'bot that "informs" you that your song's title is unfit for publishing on "some platforms." I had to ask a dumb functionary which platform that might be, and they told me it was iTunes, so I had to tell them to override the 'bot, because I wasn't having my music distributed to iTunes. After I'd report such problems, another dumb functionary, higher up the managerial ladder, refused to apologize nor take accountability on Distrokid's behalf, and responded passive-aggressively. And such things as that. Paying $20 a year to be insulted. I finally wrote to the owner of Distrokid and told him about all this and to go f*ck himself. My experience with distributor TuneCore had been even worse than that.

My experience with digital distributors is basically with the anal-sphincter types who'd formerly populated the traditional music industry, combined with the techie types who are "growing a sustainable business model" for regulating the activity of musical artists. In their own respects, neither has a clue about what musicians need nor care about; they just want to buy better cars and condos. Record labels, anymore, are mainly publicity agencies. They mainly get Bandcamp to feature you on Bandcamp's main page (don't think that it's random selection by the B/c staff), call bloggers' and magazines' attention to you, and so forth. They mainly try to get sh*t to float to the surface of the vast sea of musical output.

Musicians dropped the ball, about 20 years ago. The Internet had presented them (us) with a golden opportunity to be in charge of the musical culture that we create – but we let techies, who neither care nor understand what it is we do or are about, take the reins. Underground musicians of the 1980s had more freedom, opportunity and self-determination; if it hadn't cost so much to record and manufacture records, they would have had even more. Now, it costs next-to-nothing to produce and distribute one's music, but there's a million times more of it available to the public, and the community (and sense thereof) that had driven musical culture of yesteryear has been atomized by the techies' influence.

This isn't to discourage you. However, if you're not making music for the sake of doing so, rather than in hopes of making money, you're setting yourself up for a terrible disappointment.

 

When uploading to Routenote, I can supply a isrc code, or get one from them.
but you should not get your hopes up for the bigger streaming services.
no one will discover your music by the algorithm, you don't get in lists that way

 

Digital distribution just distributes music, you don't have to expect them to market your product. Just publishing tracks on spotify / beatport / applemusic is not a useful action in itself, it will not give any commercial or image return. This is because your songs will end up in their oceanic archive with no chance of being noticed. It should also be noted that when you deliver your artistic product to distributors you will lose the rights of use, for example you will no longer be able to freely use the songs for your videos on youtube, you will not be able to upload them to soundcloud or other streaming services ...
What I mean is that the use of digital distribution is the last step to take after studying a specific product placement strategy, otherwise it becomes a useless act.
If your ambitions are more moderate, if your idea is to distribute your songs to your facebook followers, I believe that Bandcamp is much more practical and transparent

 

Even with a distributor you can still upload to soundcloud and youtube. You still control your rights they are only distributors. Distrokid also has an option to allow your youtube channel.

 

Last edited: Dec 29, 2020

Sure, what you can do is whitelist YOUR official youtube channel. Unfortunately you cannot whitelist any channel. This means that no DJ will be able to use your songs in livestreaming (youtube, facebook etc.).
This is an obvious limitation of rights, you basically no longer have 100% rights over your songs.
In short, you have to evaluate these things well before submitting your work to spotify and friends and understand if it is convenient or not, because often (especially for underground producers) it can be a mistake.

 

I learned a lot in this thread, thank you to everyone who took the time to write their posts.
@recycle Where can I find good, accurate and up to date information about these things, so I can make an informed decision? What you wrote about the streaming restrictions on YouTube when using a distributor is something I would never have thought of. I feel overwhelmed by the amount of tutorials, articles etc.. Is there something you could recommend? I am not sure how to go about releasing music properly.

@m.sarti very sombering post but I suppose you have a good point.

 

can you explain the not having 100% rights over songs anymore?/what rights a small time individual has/does not have?

 

That isn't correct. If they use your song they can't monetise it and royalties can be collected for you.
You still have 100% rights and control over your music. Distrokid is no longer doing youtube for certian genres. hiphop, edm.
There are separate agencies that just collect youtube royalties off your music being used in others content.
It would be more a limitation of rights letting anyone use your music in their videos and not being able to control it.

 

When you create it you own it. The only time you don't is signing it away to a record label or any other contract.
Him saying you have no rights with a distributor is totally not true. A distributor works for you. Just like a supermarket distributor doesn't own all the brands on the shelf. You are paying a distributor to put your song on the shelf.
His context is based on his poor limitations of his own marketing and limiting beliefs.

 

Last edited: Dec 30, 2020

Yes you can, then you will have to dispute over the ownership of your copyright (which is not easy at all) You would end up waiting weeks for soundcloud clearance, often they don't even answer

Yes and no: Yes, you can upload the song, but you cannot monetize. There are cases in which the use of the song is not even allowed (depending on the agreements)

Digital distributors don't work for free: part of their income is taking commission on song plays, basically they become publishers. Precisely because their job is to administer the reproductions on the web, the artist no longer has complete control of his work (for example, facebook live cuts off the live broadcast on each song already published).
If the purpose is not business, if you just want to distribute the songs on the web then I'd avoid major distribution. I believe that Bandcamp is the best solution for that

 

I don't agree with anything you are posting. You sound hugely misinformed.
It all depends on the distribution service.
Your points about no longer having complete control are petty.
I would say 90% of people I know who are non musicians have never heard of Bandcamp and then you have to convert them into sales. Good one.
If the purpose is not business, if you just want to distribute the songs on the web like you are saying then you might as well just upload to youtube and soundcloud and not even bother with Bandcamp.

 

My usual distributors are cdbaby and feiyr and this is my experience:

• I had various interrupted facebook and youtube livestreams for using my already published tracks
• I had youtube videos blocked for using my already published tracks
• I had Soundcloud uploads refused for using my already published tracks

The reason is always the same: copyright infringement

All this because the distributor grabs the exclusive right to distribute the songs, no one else can do it without his permission, not even me.
That's why I publish my not business-oriented productions on Bandcamp: I prefer it to other portals because it is possible to distribute in flac, for example on souncloud / youtube there is the usual crappy 128 / 160k. Among other things, I am very pleased to receive payments on Bandcamp from people who are not obliged to do so (all my songs are "name your price"), there are many good people who recognize the value of art and are willing to pay for it out of gratitude
No, I don't think I'm misinformed, I know the subject quite well: I believe that large distributors are useful when there is the support of a commercial strategy and the project is real business.