Examples of ill scenarios with music distribution | FEATUR:ED

Welcome to FEATUR:ED- our new segment in which we share a particularly large scale situation within the music, culture & media space from which we can learn from & possibly shift our mindsets in their actually adequate direction.

With that said, we also do not make any “implications” of any ill willed actions from sides spoken about and do not support any mass theories & negative opinions. We’re here with some facts which can potentially work wonders in a life of someone who would’ve otherwise suffered the consequences. Such as producers, writers, rappers, Independent musicians.

(Disclaimer to those who are somewhat familiar with Karra’s 100k project being taken down:

Don’t rush & say this could’ve all been avoided if she made every piece of material herself. It’s not supposed to be the pre requisite to certain rights - especially the ones keeping your valid projects on your profile. It’s also her name mentioned but not the highlight of this segment, the situation is the point.

Besides, Karra most definitely can make a LP all by herself. This is also a big situation because it’s clearly not put forth how serious of a risk it can be to invest in your career in such cases.)

(This 100k investment is Lawyer, Mix/Master, Covers, Edits, Videos etc)

Let’s get into it,

If you’ve ever started digging through countless samples on Splice you’ve probably heard Karra. Well, almost definitely.

As you’ll hear in her own video, Karra tells you she even has a bachelors in music business, both her parents are teachers/music teachers so why would someone with such info ever even try streaming fraud at all? Or put herself in such position at all?

She did no such thing. Of course.

(Since she is such an ideal example, we should add this:

Perfoming outshines streaming when it comes to the artist/musician potentially making money. Selling a product does provide a chance of financial stability & success away from the classic narrative of a performing artist/musician which can definitely still bring you your desired amount of money if that’s something you want & actually go into doing).

Since the music industry is full of children, teenagers & young adults thinking they want to “do” music it’s only natural to explain how that makes sense if

1. You can do that and not disrupt any monthly income you need to survive/save/live,

2. Get a solid streaming flow & turn that into performing or start doing whatever you should to have that as the final goal.

   
   

If that’s actually possible - you’ve hit the lotto.

Anyways, let’s get back to what happened.)

Karra is one of the premium creators in the independent music space on YouTube now, she’s been one of top sellers of vocal packs on Splice, now has her own site with much more, has been growing her YouTube with some of the most beautiful videography needed for any of us to enjoy the experience as we learn and grow as producers.

Obviously, despite it being a reason to click on any video of hers, you do naturally go into the video when you see it’s titled “I invested 100 thousand dollars in my album & Spotify deleted it.”

Genuinely, why is this a problem? And how did it happen to her? It’s surely a mistake. “

In short, it’s not. As she says it herself in the second part of her video on the topic, for example Spotify is Swedish, most distros are American. There’s not one clear set of laws - a legal grey area.

This grey area is probably why there’s no clear removal of AI music & why anyone can upload anything on your official artist page, to start off with.

In her case, she’s had some of the music put in bot playlists as well as had the album removed because of some legal issues involving one of her co writers.( Not sure if we should ask why the co writers haven’t mentioned anything during their work together…)

And what did this do?

This made her tracks muted on TikTok and unavailable for monetization on YouTube.

(Now, it would be best to tune in to her video after reading because we’re providing it in written form which might make it complicated compared to her natural deliveries in the video.

This seemed like the only valid reason for her project to be taken down.)

What’s truly bizarre is technically being accused of fraud because of getting on botted playlists you didn’t put yourself in.

She’s not the only person that has happened to.

Artists who aren’t even putting themselves on those playlists or any even.

At that time, these big music distributors were involved in the legal issues with streaming/tiktok.

It’s also good to mention another issue we can unfortunately have happen ( but lets be positive and hope they fix it):

Anyone can put an artist as part of their projects on for example DistroKid.

As long as that person has a Spotify for Artists, you can have your project also on their page? Apparently so.

Karra is the perfect example because she’s in this position because of her creating so many successful and easily downladable vocal samples. (Product, not performing, which was mentioned.)

Despite it surely being good for her financially, she even talks about the process of trying to get them removed from her profile stressful and unjust.

All of these artists have used her samples and despite paying to use them with no tag needed - they end up still doing so & attaching all projects not associated with her still on her official page.

Imagine selling with terms of use and still having to deal with constant issues you can’t fix properly or at all.

It feels like a constant chore for her which can influence her work day to day and requires so much organizing.

This doesn’t seem like anything invalid. In fact, anyone should want to do so well that their work & life require a whole planner with properly executed time stamps but lets take in consideration what you will probably have to get into as a producer/artist/musician ( which we will cover sometime after this, generalized up to date)

Writing & sending potential distributor offers,

Planning the rollout

What to do in waiting time for that

Estimating marketing expenses

Time management planning

Social media creating

Social media editing

Social media posting

Potential networking

De cluttering

Organising media

Investing in skills such as course, online course, offering some course of your own or similar

Asking questions during whatever needed sessions & actually applying changes you need

Scheduling time off

Reading

Potential new project, other project draft

We’ll be going over these as part of the CULTUR:ED series & it’s maybe less important to read them in chronological order, it’s ideal to read it at all.

It’s targeted to the creator who understands this is easier to go through and take notes in than a podcast.

We’ve put the online submissions form for anyone who wants to ask any question or send something interesting our way. You can keep it anon if you put any e - mail, it’s still good.

(For potential music submissions:

We don’t take any big distro inquiries because we can provide distributing your projects on the label streaming and YouTube. We cover it & keep it shared. We can arrange marketing costs but so far we’re still creating that agreement so hopefully you have a chill release, if not wait to see if Baun$ can be a home for one of your projects & stay reading if you don’t have time for podcasts & video in general.

ADDITIONALLY:

We won’t be making any YouTube playlist with these distribution issue videos and we aren’t happy if we’re in any way coming off as negative towards anyone involved with the whole thing. It also seems fixable.

Staying hating Spotify or DistroKid for example, seems like a waste of energy, especially with the remix feature?

But considering the way it can be such a reward to participate, it’s okay to forgive these providers but it would be a shame if it caused the audience to stray from their music especially since the issues are fixable.

And if you’re involved in the music industry reading this - don’t stop being a listener or think you’re stopping just because it’s all gotten to be so much.

Focus on figuring it out for yourself.

Of course there’s plenty of musicians with enough monthly listeners & sales to stay living that way without any fame at all, if you know of

examples or are one message us with how that experience is going & what issues if any you’ve had. Especially the big ones.

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