I'm curious. Let's say there's a new independent music distribution company coming on the scene, what would make you curious about their offering, or what is important to you? Low distro rate? Royalty accounting or split payments? Campaign Marketing solutions? SoundExchange/Neighboring Rights? Publishing administration? Discovery Mode? Human customer support/label manager? Catalog Migration tools? Advance/funding opportunities? Sync pitching? CRM/Project Management tools? I know some of you are going to respond with "All!," but remember, distributors are not record labels, so please entertain me for a minute and list what is most important. Thank you in advance! #musicdistribution #independentmusic
My top requirements: 1) Responsive human assistance to solve issues; 2) Rep pitching to regular DSP meetings as part of a release campaign; 3) Split payments after a set recoupment; 4) Competitive pricing. My wish list: The ability to download account reporting with filters as a CSV to analyse the flow of revenue. For example, I don't need item by item 100s of lines. Nor does a lump sum help me. I want filters to create custom reports. I may want an overview of each song's earnings on a monthly basis; I may want to breakdown each song's earnings by country (Song X: Romania €3.49; Hungary €10.43). It would be helpful at times to be able to see if County x has a higher proportion of paid users vs. Country y. I also want the transparency on the Distributor's take. Lastly, I want the ability to use my own UPC numbers.
With over 20 years of experience in the industry, we offer a basic solution with our Futureaudio CMS that can be developed individually. This means you already have extensive basic tools (splits, multi-client capability, bulk tools, server selection, connecting your own DSPs, etc.) and costs for additional individual features are controllable and you only pay for what you really need. This means you can do whatever you want with the CMS, classic distribution, sub-distribution, publishers can use it, labelgroups etc.... Set it up the way you need it. Many of the features offered by other providers are certainly great to read, but for many they are of little interest and the costs are too high. I hardly believe that there is any need for more classic distributors today, there are enough of them, unless they have direct contracts with DSP partners and use middlemen for delivery, which are hardly interesting anymore. The amount of music in circulation also leads to the thought: "Do we still need distributors or will Spotify and others soon just have a prompt window for generating music content according to mood?"
Kevin Miller
2w
When we no longer have Spotify, and so many other platforms, the internet changes , no more face book, Instagram, no numbers, how will these labels support artists or what criteria will they have to have to get support? It will have to be all bout the music again as it should be. If an artist and a song are a good fit, whatever numbers these labels require and artist to have before even considered, will come. I will 100% back an artist
''Distributors are not record companies''. And why can't distributors bridge the gap?
Idris A.
2w
1) sync pitch 2) Funding opportunities 3) No distro rate. Take 15% of net royalty payouts as distribution compensation. 4) Royalty accounting & split payments should be standard by now. 5) Human customer support
David Choi
2w
All the tools mentioned already exist in a plethora of platforms... it's the fan accumulation, streams, and income generation that musicians desire most.
I'd love to hear more. How about playlisting and tools to increase streams?
I, personally, hate the amount of time it takes entering the same metadata over and over in all of the various systems / orgs you mentioned. I would love for there to be a simple way to enter the data once and have it go everywhere
Jeremy Da
2w
First, congrats on this new venture! My general answer would be anything that leads to a) revenue, and b) exposure for the music, and at the lowest possible cost (indie budgets are small). You cannot be good at all the things that lead to these results as a distro, but since playlist pitching is no longer the big differentiator, and distro is in a lot of ways a race to the bottom for the past 15+ years (smaller margins), you have to be creative with the opportunities for exposure you can provide to ARTISTS so it makes sense to them. Otherwise you’re another open-ended distro Iike Tunecore or Distrokid. That’s why we built Acrylic.LA🦎🤓 Happy to chat further if ever you’re curious!
Mix Engineer & Producer
2wFor me it'd be GREAT sync pitching by people who believe in the music... with some ethical sliding scale of returns for the distribution company. That effort costs money. Successful placements can change the artist's career long-term and is one of the best income generators we have these days. At the same time, profit is not a dirty word. Distributors need to make money to support themselves and the next wave of artists. I'd give a huge % for opportunities like that, as long as it was for a fixed amount of time (3 - 5 years?). Streaming numbers - either takes care of itself or it doesn't - honestly don't care Later down the line - publishing admin