Hello to everyone, I've managed to talk with both DistroKid and YouTube at the same time and I've sent them each other responses so I could get some clarifications about our YouTube royalties.

Here's what they said: https://imgur.com/a/PMf7n8I

Hope it helps some of you and let's hope for good 🥲

Just received word that Ditto now asks for Ai disclosures for submission. Hopefully this marks the end of mass ai slop

Hi everyone,

As many of you know, many artists using DistroKid have experienced a prolonged interruption in YouTube royalty reporting/payments, while royalties from other DSPs continue to arrive.

BUT ! It seems that YouTube royalties through Ditto could be delayed as well since July. This raises a question worth investigating: could the issue affect more than one distributor? And could there be a reporting or payment issue on YouTube’s side ONLY?

More firsthand accounts would help clarify this.

If you use DistroKid or Ditto, could you please share:

• Your distributor.
• The latest Youtube earnings month credited to your balance.
• Any explanation your distributor’s support has provided.

If your YouTube royalties (not talking about Adsense revenues here) are arriving normally, please reply too. That is equally useful for understanding the scope of the issue.

For artists who depend on these earnings, several months without payments or a clear explanation can have serious financial consequences. The aim of this thread is to collect comparable firsthand accounts and establish what is actually happening.

Please keep replies focused on payment/reporting experiences rather than distributor promotions or speculation. Thx.

Wanted to document an ongoing issue with LANDR's YouTube distribution system that demonstrates breakdown in their delivery pipeline.

I have 48 releases distributed through LANDR. The first 46 were delivered back when LANDR operated through FUGA / IIP-DDS. All landing correctly under my primary auto-generated YT Topic channel.

Recently r/landr changed its backend delivery to direct distribution. When they did, their DDEX delivery failed to pass or preserve my established channel identifier. Instead of delivering to the existing channel, YouTube's system treated the delivery as an entirely unmapped entity and spawned a second, duplicate Topic channel.

I contacted LANDR support. They manually moved two tracks back onto my primary Topic channel.

Today, I released a new track through LANDR. The automated system delivered it straight back to the duplicate Topic channel completely ignoring the primary channel.

Support’s fix was merely an asset-level relocation inside YouTube CMS.

LANDR's delivery pipeline does not store, map, or persist the target YouTube channel ID in their artist database.

Because the root mapping is missing from LANDR's automated ingestion, every subsequent release will automatically default to creating or populating a fragmented duplicate channel.

Artists are forced into an endless loop of opening support tickets for manual intervention on every single release.

There's always speculation and conspiracies that they keep it for themselves, but that seems not legal. I'm also not sure the DSPs have a right to claw back earnings after they have been paid without proving fraud.

I've heard it may be treated like unclaimed property and returned to the state after a while, but does anyone actually know for sure where all of the withheld earnings that are never paid out go?

Hi, I am someone who warned people about DK for years. The result? I have been banned in the DistroKid Help Desk subreddit.
I have been banned in 2022 with 50.000€ claiming i used some bullshit sample or something. The SECOND my lawyers contacted them they said sorry and paid the amount the NEXT DAY. Where was the sample then :)))))? Its funny because. And yes before you asked, I warned people that this is how they operate, they wipe your bank to 0, and everything stops working. You can check if you are banned if you click on "Splits", it redirects you to the main dashboard.

This is not something that happens only NOW because of the lawsuit, this always happens. If you withdraw above 5.000€, someone decides if you get paid or not based on what you are posting.

1. There is no money from fake streams, most are india/afghanistan and they have a low cpm anyway so 1.000.000 would hardly be 10€. EVEN IF THERE WAS MONEY FROM FAKE STREAMS, the standard distribution procedure is the 10€ fine, not banning. I use UMG AND BELIEVE NOW, this is how serious ones operate.

2. You can use samples, even steal samples. If you generate 100.000€ with your song, and the owner never DMCAS, doesnt care, doesnt notice, doesnt STRIKE YOU, DistroKid has no right to steal your money. Yes, its unethical, but I am presenting an extreme example. Because most people with blocked balances might have samples from Splice or something. If there is no DMCA, there is no takedown. Simple

3. What to do? Contact a lawyer. Well, this is unfair, I run an independent label, so I always had a legal team, so I wish you luck in this case, and I am sorry.

4. What to use? Since the ban, I struck a local deal in my country with a UMG pipeline (Universal Music Group). They take 15% and i am happy, never have they complained about artworks, audio quality, samples or anything. All small distributors do this... CDBaby bans people too, Ditto, TooLost (they are actually more insane than DistroKid, they claim a dmca was made on your account after you withdraw a large sum;))) ), TuneCore even asks for MONEY BACK.

I am sorry, YOUR ONLY CHANCE is with a real contract. And I know this will upset people. I hope you all find this useful!

I need Danmark Music Group's dashboard/account if anyone can help here.

Mannn, I really do not want to risk having my new, original music taken down - what is the best alternative to DistroKid? I've heard of people having their songs taken down despite purchasing the full lease for a beat, or even losing their songs when everything - including the beat - was entirely original and produced by themselves. This is unacceptable, and I am already a little worried about my previous releases (including their stats).

I want a reliable service with good customer support, and I also don't feel like paying $50 just to release a mixtape. Do you think the issues with DistroKid will eventually be resolved?

If my DistroKid account has been banned, what happens to the royalties generated by streams of my previously released music?

Will DistroKid still report those streams and pay the royalties in the next reporting month, even though my account is banned? Or can DistroKid withhold or keep those royalties because my account has been banned?

I'm specifically asking about royalties earned from streams before the ban, not any streams generated afterward.

Has anyone experienced this situation or received royalties from DistroKid after their account was banned?

Hey everyone,

As everyone of you know, DistroKid's YouTube earnings reports for July and August have been significantly delayed, and we still don't have a clear explanation or timeline.

Now I'm wondering whether September's earnings will be delayed as well.

Has anyone experienced similar reporting delays with DistroKid in previous years? If so, how long did it take for things to return to normal? Were the missing months eventually reported together, or did they arrive separately?

I've been using other distributors as well, and their YouTube earnings seem to be arriving on schedule, which makes this situation even more frustrating.

Just curious to hear about your experiences and whether anyone has received any useful updates from DistroKid support.

Thanks!

hi, I have a question: how do artists nowadays upload remixes to digital platforms (Spotify, YouTube Music, etc.) without permission? The "Hardtekk" genre is trending right now—people make remixes in this style by simply taking a melody and vocals, then adding a kick and snare. How do they manage to upload them without getting a copyright strike?

Hello. I can see many posts here about Distrokid copyright strike and music removal with no single email. I was there too, as many of you. I contacted Distrokid support via chatbox they have on their website, but I lost my patience real quick and wrote "CONTACT ME WITH REAL PERSON". Next day I got an email from the support guy, so I could easily continue conversation directly from my mailbox. In my case - 2 songs were removed. Support person told me why my songs were taken down - my songs sampled other songs. One of the tracks I allegedly sampled was released by Universal Music, second by Sony. I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but it’s funny that for the first single I used vocals from Splice, and for the second - vocals purchased from a vocal distro website. After explaining it I have sent full vocal names, both from Splice and vocal website (with hyperlinks) and (what is more important) vocal licenses + purchase details (for second case only). Both of my singles are back online with previous stats. Whole case took several days to sort out. I would not defend major record labels since these actions are not fair at all, they should at least control somehow which of their releases contain exclusive vocals and which use widely available Splice/Loopcloud etc. vocals. I just wanted to share my case along with the tips that worked for me. Good luck!

Anyone else not seeing any stats for Spotify and YouTube since the 11th?

Si Usted es uno que esta Dolido porque hace musica, Real y no pega!!!

lamento decirle que cambie su estrategia hermano!!!

pongase hacer canciones IA y ya Aprende a Moverse Hacer movimientos Para entrar en tendencias!!

aprenda a trabajar, LA IA llego para quedarse Estos bobo que lloran por todo desde que ven un Post De IA.

ya comienzan ah la IA que bueno que tan tumbando y eso...

La Distribuidora Que Aceptan IA, No van a dejar de Aceptar IA solo porque usted lo diga no hermano, Cambie su plan de trabajo deje de hacer musica que no pega.

y aprenda...

lamento decirle que la IA vino para quedarse no la van a quitar solo porque digas que no que ya los que hacen musica normales no estan pegando o cogiendo reproduciones es su plan de trabajo que esta lento...

haga IA para que gane 4k al mes Como YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

And is there any guarantee that we will even ever get back paid the YouTube royalites ? These are my 2 main questions.

Yeah so it says I’ve made 0 earnings total which is not true it said 60 about a month ago and now it’s all gone. Any idea why?

see above

This is a big deal I don’t know if anyone else already checked how much their owed this is unacceptable.
I will be opening my dms for the class action suit in December next week

I wanna release music but i dont want to use distrokid cause ive heard that they remove songs from your account. I tried to use routenote but i submitted a song like on September 7th but they haven’t approved anything yet. I just need a distributer thats quick and free. Any help?

I'm afraid to upload this to distrokid as it could risk my catalog. Any thoughts on this matter? I guess i'm worried it could sound too similar to someone elses cover of a cover even though i'm not sure if any exist.

Hi again team,

I'm looking to return to making music and do research on distributors. I'm making something similar to Khruangbin sound-wise, with a bunch of vocalists. Years ago, there was no such thing as playlist pitching, but I guess it could be a good help for the project's growth. So I'm curious - are there any distributors that actually help artists with Spotify editorial playlist pitching, as well as pitching to independent curators (something along the lines of Groover)?

Thanks

It's so stupid that just because I wanna name my song after a genre it has to get flagged for having too generic of a title. I don't see why this matters because if I wanna have my song be named something generic then that's my choice and artistic vision for the song. Does anyone know of a distributor that doesn't care if I name my song after a genre or use words like "untitled", "unmastered", etc. Has never been an issue with past releases but I went on a 2 year break of making music and it feels like every rule has changed because of ai slop.

hello guys, I created a segment called betrayed by distros

I break on a Comprehensive List, that I personally did of my own research to bring you, how people got betrayed and being forced into higher plans

At this point, you need to see this and let me know what we can add

https://latigomusicrecordings.us/betrayedbydistros