Title says it all. Who do you use when your big, beautiful project is ready for everyone to hear.
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It depends on a lot more things than it used toā¦
In my opinion the primary question now isā¦ do you want your music used to train AI and make AI music generation software like Suno better and more adept at emulating humans (including yourself)ā¦?
If the answer is no then ultimately at the extreme donāt release it at all anywhere, or the next step is only release it on hardcopy media (CD, LP, Cassette) and pray that nobody digitizes it and puts it in the path of the bots, beyond that it will get into the sleepless little scraping hands of AI whether you want it to or notā¦
On the other hand if you are not concerned about the AI realities of our current times and if you want it Distributed everywhere then yes, DistroKid is probably your best bet currently with the older and more mature CDBaby being a second choiceā¦
If you want to simply share it with others aside from being on the the top streaming services like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Tidal et al then Bandcamp is still a very good option with Soundcloud being a distant second mostly due to it being overrun with bot User accounts of itās ownā¦ There are also other decentralized options like Funkwhale and Mastodon etc. which are allegedly more bot-safe by design but also very unpopulated by and not overly intuitive to your average Windows/Mac/Android Music listener so essentially ānerds-onlyā platformsā¦
I personally used CDBaby in the past and my music was on all Streaming services and Bandcamp, once I was aware that the big Streaming services were using the submissions to train AI without clearly delineating this in their Tolstoy-length opaque User Agreements I pulled everything off with the exception of Bandcamp and TBH it is still not clear to me if Bandcamp is a safe haven at all but one disappointment at a time is all I can process right now because right under our noses it all turned to shit so insidiously and the breadth and depth of the theft and privacy invasion is difficult to fully comprehend for old people (like me) who are/were basically trusting individualsā¦
I suppose if you surrender to the liars and bots things will be much more stress-free for you, but at least be aware of what will happen to your musicā¦ EVERYTHING about marketing music has changed, you are now sharing your music with both listeners and providing it to train AI, those things are for the most part now not mutually exclusive.
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Just cancelled my DistroKid account. One of the reasons is what @GMaq points out. The other is that it didnāt bring us much. A couple of listeners and it looks kind of pro to have a presence on the big streaming platforms.
My punk rock band is still on the streaming platforms, weāre having a discussion as we speak if we should stay there. Weāre using RouteNote for that which is a free service, contrary to DistroKid. Itās a bit more spartan but works really well too.
With the band I took off of DistroKid Iām going the ānerds-onlyā route, so Faircamp, Mirlo and Mastodon. I read ānerds-onlyā as āearly-adaptersā though 
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From Bandcampās AUP:
You also agree:
ā¦
- Not to train any machine learning or AI model using content on our site or otherwise ingest any data or content from Bandcampās platform into a machine learning or AI model;
- Not to create, develop, use, or offer any Unauthorised AI Tools. āUnauthorised AI Toolsā means any artificial intelligence technology or services that uses, or is informed by, trained on, or developed using copyrighted works, names, likenesses, trademarks, or voices without authorization from the person(s) who own or control such copyrights or other rights. An Unauthorised AI Tool shall be deemed to include any service, product, or technology (including, without limitation, artificial intelligence technology) that uses, is informed by, or is dependent upon an Unauthorised AI Tool;
Cheers,
Keith
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Oh, now i can clearly see iām not the only one who is seriously bothered with these kind of dilemmasā¦
Whole net (and general public) is praising AI to the point that it feels dangerous to speak the truth about it. āThe Truthā that i see is that AI, in creative industries at least, is just automated thivery. Itās a new shiny toy for the naive, and a geat tool for The Man. The blindness of those who hope to ācreateā using AI is scary to me. Iām not sure what they actualy think they ācreateāā¦I think AI has itās stronghold in human fears, and thatās why itās sooo dangerous. You know, i would also like to be Bach, but iām not, and iām glad iām able to recognize it, to deal with that.
On the other side of thingsā¦
Ever tought it is kind of paranoid of us?
Have you reached some kind of conclusion?
Does anybody see the way off the doomed ship?
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Maybe Iāll just send it to friends and relatives 
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ā¦but friends and relatives also have friends and relatives ā¦who then have instagram and tik tok accountsā¦ 
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Also letās not forgetā¦
If you have made Videos with your music and you are in them either as still photos or video then you can delight in the double treachery of having both your likeness and your music fed to the machineā¦ 
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Well, getting back to the actual question, I do not publish on DistroKid so I canāt rate their tools and publishing process. I donāt use DistroKid merely for 1 reason and that is that they only accept credit card payment, I donāt have one and wonāt get one just for that service.
I used TuneCore so far. From what I can tell they basically offer the same services as DistroKid, stuff like:
- first of all, the accept paypal payment
- they currently have 3 subscrption plans with addes featues but they all include
- unlimited publications
- publishing to all shops (tidal, deezer, itunes, amazon, etc ā¦ of course also spotify but ugh.)
- publishing to all social media platform, so that your music can be imbedded in reels and stuf like that
- for all shops and social media platforms you can choose which to realese to and which not.
- you can manage monitization splits, if you were featuring someone, for example
- there is a way to connect a youtube channel as your official yt channel or have a youtube id created for you, but i`m still figuring out how this works. basically Iāve been too lazy creating a youtube account for my personal music and then connect it.
- you get basic analysis tools, to monitor rotations for the big shops, that is spotify, youtube, amazon, itunes and others, if iām not mistaken now.
they advertise their publishing process as uncomplicated, fast and easy ā¦ of course. I find their webinterface rather confusing unnecessary cumbrrsome and horrible, but thatās just the former webdeveloper in me talking ;). after all the publishing process was ok and took about 3 weeks till all shops were served.
I later decided to take my realese downfrom Spotify, which wasnāt as easy as it could have been. I had to contact the support, which imho can be handled easier technically, but in the end it worked. Future releases will be excluded from Spotify right away, so these inconveniences shoulnāt happen anymore.
Thatās all I can contribute at this point.
I wasnāt fully happy with the publishing process so I might check out other alternatives but it was the best fit at that time and my perfectionism aside it was okay.
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I left Distrokid due to the simple reason that I could only pay them with credit card or GooglePay. I donāt have a credit card anymore and donāt want to use Googlepay. How stupid can a company be.
Now Iām with RouteNote, they are UK-based which is a plus.
Apart from AI-worries there is a growing concern where our personal data is stored and how it can be abused. I think, in europe at least, there is a tendency to withdraw from US-companies and find an alternative solution either in Europe or elsewhere. In such a world we live in these days alas.
I also have music on Bandcamp. Donāt know why but their environment feels pleasant to me.
I have a bad experience with Soundcloud. Tried removing a page/account but itās impossible to get in touch with them. Moved to Reverbnation, is the better choice I think. Service levels.
So if you go publishing your music thereās more to consider than just having your music on the internet.
I like Bandcamp, and even more with the terms of service that Keith Milner (Majik) referred to. I have no illusions about those terms being a barrier to the usurpers, tho.
Iāve found excellent music on Bandcamp and made friends with other musicians on the site.
The technobros have no use for creative people, but their SOās probably do ; )
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I used CDBaby to distribute our āScorched Earthā album to most streaming platforms.
Pro: only a one-time fee per release.
Con: they stopped providing an āOfficial Artist Channelā for YouTube some months before we released.
For our next album we most likely will switch to recordJetā¦
Today, i have seen a video, where someone explains the very concerning facts of Windows 11. Windows wants to be your ears, your eyes, and feed everything to AI.
So i am not sure, if you make your music on a Windows 11 OS, that it is not already fed to the AI bots, regardless of where you upload your music.
If this is true than it is very concerning, and i am happy to do all the things on a linux computer for a decade now.
What do you think?
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