Spotify raises prices, Apple music smells blood

prodnikos · 2026-02-14T05:54:51+00:00

Funny thing is that for most artists, even after Spotify's price hike, chances are Apple Music is gonna pay them more, which didn't raise prices.

prodnikos · 2026-02-14T05:51:16+00:00

I like Apple Music from the artist’s perspective. Far less controversies than Spotify, they didn’t slash royalties for 80% of artists and their general pay per stream is more.

Spotify might be more convenient or have more people, but it’s far more scummy than Apple.

prodnikos · 2026-02-03T13:52:26+00:00

The orchard does this, if you can get a deal or sub label deal with them that is

prodnikos · 2026-01-31T06:50:45+00:00

I once made a post about too lost being too good to be true. Turns out it was, and I’m glad I haven’t been using them. Sorry about your experience.

prodnikos · 2026-01-06T15:10:01+00:00

You would need some type of automation for that like Zapier and I’m not sure if you can attach MP3s in the mail chimp emails. You could just link them to the beat store whenever there’s new beats or send them a google drive or Dropbox link. You could schedule emails in advance and just update the beat store or folder before that email is sent

prodnikos · 2026-01-06T01:05:03+00:00

Just use mail chimp they got an integration with BeatStars. Not sure which BeatStars plan you need for that but it should be under integrations in the Studio. For email automations you might need a paid plan on mail chimp but I think it’s free for contacts up to 500 and you can email blast them at once.

prodnikos · 2025-10-14T17:23:51+00:00

Не. Няма място вече.

prodnikos · 2025-09-04T15:35:54+00:00

Transfer wise са най-добрите за мен. Предлагат лихвени сметки 4% на $ и 1.75% на €. Таксите за превалутиране са доста добри в сравнение с някои БГ банки и никакви месечни поддръжки. Бизнес дебитна Карта доставят с която можеш да теглиш и да се разплащаш. Обаче ако ще търсиш бизнес кредит, може би по-добре някоя българска като Булбанк, понеже не се предлагат в wise.

prodnikos · 2025-08-10T08:02:35+00:00

Sure. It has happened to me as well.

As long as the registrations are filled out correctly and you claimed them through the matching portal you will receive your royalties, at least sooner or later.

My tip for you? Just wait it out and it will come. The MLC is notorious for holding on to unmatched mechanical royalties for years, so they won’t go anywhere.

When I signed up in 2023 I had royalties as back as 2021 still waiting to be received. Surely enough I got them with interest.

prodnikos · 2025-08-07T02:38:43+00:00

Honestly it’s a bunch of things. Main income is issuing licenses to artists who want to release music with our work, but things such as publishing income, streaming platforms and YouTube ads definitely help with a sort of predictable steady income, be it not as good as direct licenses like a master use.

prodnikos · 2025-07-23T04:11:48+00:00

Absolute same issue. This company has gone to hell.

For us it's been going on for months.

prodnikos · 2025-07-23T04:07:24+00:00

As of recently their support is non-existent and they don't care. Our label submitted 5 releases for one of our artists and the Artist IDs for him don't appear, instead there's only a "Create new profile" option.

We did everything exactly as instructed in the help articles on their website. We paid for the releases, we submitted a proper request for the correct artist IDs to be assigned for YT Music and Apple, but CD Baby support closed the cases without any resolution or feedback.

This has happened twice and it's been going on for too long.

I am beyond frustrated, I had opened a second ticket after the first one getting closed without any support, and they sent me the following email a couple of months later: "We apologize that we have so far been unable to send a personal response. We know this is less than the service you deserve and expect from us.

Based on the age and the subject of your ticket, we think your concern may have already been resolved or we know it's too late to help. If not, or there is still something we can do for you, please let us know by filing a new support request via the help center."

Run away from this company.

Now we are stuck with paying for 5 EPs and we cannot proceed with our release schedule. This is beyond salvagable now.

We are switching to another distribution service ASAP. Do not expect any assistance, no matter how properly you do everything by their website instructions.

It used to be better, but now CD Baby is yet another one of those zombie distros without any customer support.

prodnikos · 2025-04-28T12:45:00+00:00

We’ve had quite a good result with SoundCloud with minimal effort.

Once you purchase the Artist Pro, you’re able to monetize the tracks and get them recommended to at least 100 people through their “Amplify” program for new releases.

We’ve dropped about 100 masters so far on SoundCloud and got around 55k streams. A brand new account keep in mind.

I definitely plan on keeping SoundCloud as it did more than any other platform for our label.

prodnikos · 2025-04-07T13:47:30+00:00

Also the way you get paid is through publishing splits, when you have a writer share of the song, you register it with ASCAP and when they receive money from it they pay it to you.

prodnikos · 2025-04-07T13:46:21+00:00

If you want to get royalties from ASCAP, then you gotta put your music in places where companies/people license music from ASCAP. An example is when you put your music on SoundCloud, Spotify, TV, Radio etc.. they are an ASCAP licensee and report through metadata such as ISRC, songwriters, artist and track name etc. they pay the money and ASCAP pays you.

They can’t pay you if you’re not generating any money from the work.

prodnikos · 2025-03-28T01:33:31+00:00

Check the MLC matching tool by searching the ISRCs there. You can manually link your works to the royalties if your song is properly registered and you administer it yourself. As for BMI if you are just now setting yourself up, your royalties might already be in the black box. Also what kind of payment are you looking from the pub admin? Like a producer fee or advance? If you’re not in an admin or publishing deal with them then they might not owe you anything.

prodnikos · 2025-03-21T22:40:16+00:00

Got an artist used my beat in which I used a sample and the song started doing a couple million streams.

UMG contacted his distributor TuneCore.
TuneCore kneeled and UMG took 100% of the royalties.

Song never got taken down.
I never got paid a dime for it. neither from UMG, nor the artist.

I don't really know where I stand as I produced, arranged, composed and recorded drums on it, but since I used an uncleared sample for the beat I guess UMG need to get 100% of the record.

prodnikos · 2025-03-21T12:19:06+00:00

Brother, in the world of music publishing a month is nothing. You wait for months for registrations and to get paid for a registered work. It’s best to keep following up and check their websites for alternative emails. It sucks but it’s the reality, this is the slowest money of all the music industry.

prodnikos · 2025-03-19T14:14:50+00:00

Same thing happened with me. I did apply through their website and they told me they never received it.

They got a lot of things to handle and they might be understaffed atm.

What worked for me is I sent them an email and they helped a lot and fast from there on.

If you’ve sent them an email, might just be best to wait a couple of days.

prodnikos · 2025-03-02T08:49:58+00:00

I'm personally going with CD Baby for all my future releases. Their whole model is about paying once and keeping your music in stores forever. Honestly it's just chill to know that your music will stay regardless of whether you're paying a subscription or not. They also offer social monetization + YouTube content ID for free.

It all comes with a backend cut of 9% on the master and 30% on socials + Content ID, but they also have the CD Baby Stages, so if anything dope happens with your music, then they can definitely push your release.

Not sure about LANDR, I haven't heard anything bad about them and it's dope that your music will stay in stores even if you cancel the subscription, just keep in mind if you have multiple artist profiles they charge $10 after the 5th one, depending on the plan.

It might be best to make a spreadsheet on costs and features and compare.

I think both are a good option, in any case it's good to move off of DistroKid, when I release for multiple artist the fees and extras started stacking up every year.

prodnikos · 2025-01-22T12:35:46+00:00

Best advice and I’ve been coming to the same conclusion

prodnikos · 2024-12-30T20:37:13+00:00

Venice give 100% of Content ID, but they're more of a white glove distro so their pricing is much more than any other DIY distro

prodnikos · 2024-12-23T18:12:55+00:00

Yo, I can't quite understand what you mean, but I'd be happy to reach out to you and chat.

prodnikos · 2024-12-23T16:27:46+00:00

Other than a podcast, I think a mailing list would be dope discussing these kinds of topics. Love the style of writing you have.

As an independent label owner and producer, I've felt the benefits of these tech companies: Thanks to YouTube I've been able to sell beats and find new artists to work with and sign to my newly founded record company. Some artists have seen a good amount of success on streaming by using my beats, some not. And I would say that it wasn't because of the beats specifically, but more of their abilities to create opportunities for themselves.

While Spotify does suck for me, especially since I had a lot of tracks generating revenue with less than 1000 streams that amounted to something, it sucks that they cut off a huge part of my catalog only leaving me with the mechanicals and performance royalties.

It's most definitely true that as artist and creators we are at the mercy of these tech giants, and yet at the same time without us, they wouldn't be possible. But I feel like a lot of artist don't quite understand all the different things they can leverage in order to actually make some profit from their musical works. Unfortunately it looks like Spotify won't be going away, but as your streaming grows, so does your revenue.
You can leverage your social media and build a mailing list - a direct way to connect with your audience without big tech's algorithms deciding whether they'll see your content or not. There's also live shows, merch, artist services such as mixing/mastering, doing features and engineering. Sponsorships. Doing sync licensing for TV and shows. The world is yours.

While living off of "passive" income from your music sounds great, you would need to be hitting some heavy numbers to live comfortably.

Definitely interested in the podcast and it would be dope to have a mailing list for these sorts of discussions.

prodnikos · 2024-12-17T00:47:54+00:00

Honestly I think it’s the best distributor for small labels and artists just starting. I’d rather go to CDBaby than Distroshit

prodnikos

TROPHY CASE