Spotify Deal With Distrokid Means Artists Can Now Upload To Other Streaming Services As Well
When Spotify announced its direct upload feature last month many artists weren’t particularly wowed since they’d still have to use a distributor to have their music uploaded to the other streaming services anyway. The company has now turned that argument on its ear by making a “passive” investment in the the distribution company Distrokid, which now enables Spotify direct artists to access those other streaming services too.
Distrokid (one of my favorite services, by the way) will remain independant from Spotify in the partnership and just provide the company’s services to its members. The distributor, which was founded in 2013, has around 250,000 members already, but that should increase with this new deal. It’s been reported that it recently received a “significant” investment round from the private equity firm Silversmith Capital Partners as well.
One of the big attractions of Distrokid is price. A member is able to upload an unlimited number of songs per year for just $19.99 and the company will not share in any of the back-end royalties. There’s no word whether this same price will pertain to Spotify artists or not.
In fact, there’s not a lot of information about how this new distribution angle will work yet, just that there’s a deal in place. It’s been revealed that there’s something in beta testing between the two companies, but it hasn’t been rolled out to many Spotify artists at this point.
What should be interesting is how other streaming services will react. Will they reach out to other distributors like TuneCore and CD Baby to make a similar deal? Will they penalize Distrokid by limiting access?
This is a great chess match between the streaming companies that’s constantly changing and mostly to the benefit of the artist, which is a nice change. Whichever company makes it, the next move is anxiously awaited. If history repeats itself, we shouldn’t have to wait too long.
