rob aylestone
Moderator
We have often mentioned what you actually do with music once you create it, so I have had an idea.
I've used Distrokids, CDbaby, Record Union Songtradr to release stuff in the past, and with the exception of Distrokids who screwed me over, they all have differences.
What I came up with was a collection of a few tracks from an old project, that is now officially dead, but usable. They have issues on a number of fronts, and actually releasing them was difficult. I thought it might help other people if I explain the trouble I have had. The tracks are stage tracks - add in this case girl singer, a few musicians and the tracks and you have a show. I've played in the missing live tracks - well, actually, I had recorded them as scratch tracks to help the mix, and then muted them - so just put them back. The songs were for a Carpenters tribute show - think theatres. They are for public consumption essentially karaoke tracks I suppose - sing alongs. Karaoke is a problem with some distributors, but not others, but releasing this has been quite interesting - as in the variety of issues. I'll redact identifying info of course, but you can see the sort of issues that crop up.
Let's start with Record Union - who are always friendly and quite personal. For newer members - when I first signed up for this American hosted forum - I had just got my adoption records unsealed so I joined with my American dad's birth name - Robert Aylestone. My adopted name is Paul Johnson - so I'm Rob here, Paul on the releases. Probably stupid to use it, but I did!
Hi Paul,
XXXX here, from the Content team at Record Union.
We've reviewed your release "Close to You - Karaoke Version" with UPC: 7321170XXXX and "Goodbye to Love - Karaoke version"
with UPC 73211XXXX, and it's been flagged for containing original recordings by another artist.
When releasing music containing samples, licenses and/or written permissions from the original copyright holder(s) are required. Please send us the documentation needed, and we’ll proceed from there.
In the case of samples of recorded material, we'll need to see documentation from both the publishing house for the songwriter/composer and from the record label with rights to the recording.
If you do not own the right to distribute all contents of your release: We advise you to remove the release from your account, to prevent the subscription from renewing in the future.
Releasing copyrighted material is a serious breach of copyright law and a violation of our user agreement.
Let me know if you have any questions on the above.
Best regards,
Now - the UK situation is that we don't need clearance for streaming services, but I am a PRS member here, and the original composers get their percentage from the distribution. However, it was flagged too for containing original samples from the original - nope, all me and my singers. So no original Carpenters audio at all. With a different distributer - Songtradr - I got this notification
Hi Paul,
Your release Stage Tracks 2 failed validation and we may require more info. Please log into your account to find out more.
Logging just had the release set to inactive with this message
Your Release was Rejected
Hi,
Please note, we are unable to distribute Karaoke tracks at this time.
So that was record union and songtradr out for this release. I moved onto CDBaby. I tried tunecore to be honest where I have an account, but something prevented me using them (my account is their but no release - not quite sure why I could not use them).
CDBaby took the release in the end - but even cover art can get you in trouble. Read this:
In my case - trademarks also matter. 'Carpenters' is Trademarked. My release of Carpenters tracks cannot include that name anywhere - let alone the exact typography they used. I wanted Carpenters Karaoke Tracks - absolute no no. Even the word Carpenters in Arial in the image was noted and rejected. The upshot is you cannot use the original artists name, image, style and anything at all that could rock the boat.
The image I ended up was a shot I took myself, and edited in photoshop. The title Stage Tracks 2 (there having been a Stage Tracks many years before) worked. CdBaby used Paul Johnson. Sometimes Sontradr won't let me use that, so then it becomes Paul Robert Johnson. It happened by mistake once from the metadata, so I think somehow they get linked. Worse is that Spotify put some of US Rap artist Paul Johnson in my music, and he gets my go to sleep music in his. There seems no way to correct this kind of thing.
Lastly income. Tiny! I get payments direct from CDbaby, Songtradr and Record Union - often the money is so low, it does not meet their threshold and gets hung over. However - as soon as the songs are live, I register them on the UK PRS system, and the payments from that can be much more pleasing. A few million streams in Europe and the US can pay decent money.
For this experiment I have tried a new system CDBaby offered - promotion via a system called hear now. I paid them 28 US Dollars to promote the album. Just to see what happens. There is a little web page set up that makes your music available with links.
This is what you get for $28 hearNow link
I'll give it a few months then come back and update this topic and let you know what info I get and any real response. I won't promote it in any other way myself, so it will be realistic. At one point I nearly gave up - the Carpenters just too much trouble. I thought of bands like the Eagles, known for their youtube takedowns - especially Hotel California. I'd imagine releasing a cover of any Eagles songs would be worse than this example.
If you have had success or failure - please feel free to add them here. It could make life easier for people knowing they are not alone in release woes!
I've used Distrokids, CDbaby, Record Union Songtradr to release stuff in the past, and with the exception of Distrokids who screwed me over, they all have differences.
What I came up with was a collection of a few tracks from an old project, that is now officially dead, but usable. They have issues on a number of fronts, and actually releasing them was difficult. I thought it might help other people if I explain the trouble I have had. The tracks are stage tracks - add in this case girl singer, a few musicians and the tracks and you have a show. I've played in the missing live tracks - well, actually, I had recorded them as scratch tracks to help the mix, and then muted them - so just put them back. The songs were for a Carpenters tribute show - think theatres. They are for public consumption essentially karaoke tracks I suppose - sing alongs. Karaoke is a problem with some distributors, but not others, but releasing this has been quite interesting - as in the variety of issues. I'll redact identifying info of course, but you can see the sort of issues that crop up.
Let's start with Record Union - who are always friendly and quite personal. For newer members - when I first signed up for this American hosted forum - I had just got my adoption records unsealed so I joined with my American dad's birth name - Robert Aylestone. My adopted name is Paul Johnson - so I'm Rob here, Paul on the releases. Probably stupid to use it, but I did!
Hi Paul,
XXXX here, from the Content team at Record Union.
We've reviewed your release "Close to You - Karaoke Version" with UPC: 7321170XXXX and "Goodbye to Love - Karaoke version"
with UPC 73211XXXX, and it's been flagged for containing original recordings by another artist.
When releasing music containing samples, licenses and/or written permissions from the original copyright holder(s) are required. Please send us the documentation needed, and we’ll proceed from there.
In the case of samples of recorded material, we'll need to see documentation from both the publishing house for the songwriter/composer and from the record label with rights to the recording.
If you do not own the right to distribute all contents of your release: We advise you to remove the release from your account, to prevent the subscription from renewing in the future.
Releasing copyrighted material is a serious breach of copyright law and a violation of our user agreement.
Let me know if you have any questions on the above.
Best regards,
Now - the UK situation is that we don't need clearance for streaming services, but I am a PRS member here, and the original composers get their percentage from the distribution. However, it was flagged too for containing original samples from the original - nope, all me and my singers. So no original Carpenters audio at all. With a different distributer - Songtradr - I got this notification
Hi Paul,
Your release Stage Tracks 2 failed validation and we may require more info. Please log into your account to find out more.
Logging just had the release set to inactive with this message
Your Release was Rejected
Hi,
Please note, we are unable to distribute Karaoke tracks at this time.
So that was record union and songtradr out for this release. I moved onto CDBaby. I tried tunecore to be honest where I have an account, but something prevented me using them (my account is their but no release - not quite sure why I could not use them).
CDBaby took the release in the end - but even cover art can get you in trouble. Read this:
| Hi Paul, |
| The #1 reason why cover art gets rejected on streaming platforms is... ... the text on the image doesn't exactly match the info on your release. If you’re a Nova Scotian fiddle group called The Halifax Pickers, but your album art says just Halifax Pickers, your cover art will get rejected. If you’re a singer-songwriter who goes by J.B. Smooth, then the album art CANNOT say JB Smooth. The punctuation must be the exact same on both your album and artist name. Pretty straightforward, right? That's the most important thing to know. You can check out this cover art guide for a complete list of all the rules. |
In my case - trademarks also matter. 'Carpenters' is Trademarked. My release of Carpenters tracks cannot include that name anywhere - let alone the exact typography they used. I wanted Carpenters Karaoke Tracks - absolute no no. Even the word Carpenters in Arial in the image was noted and rejected. The upshot is you cannot use the original artists name, image, style and anything at all that could rock the boat.
The image I ended up was a shot I took myself, and edited in photoshop. The title Stage Tracks 2 (there having been a Stage Tracks many years before) worked. CdBaby used Paul Johnson. Sometimes Sontradr won't let me use that, so then it becomes Paul Robert Johnson. It happened by mistake once from the metadata, so I think somehow they get linked. Worse is that Spotify put some of US Rap artist Paul Johnson in my music, and he gets my go to sleep music in his. There seems no way to correct this kind of thing.
Lastly income. Tiny! I get payments direct from CDbaby, Songtradr and Record Union - often the money is so low, it does not meet their threshold and gets hung over. However - as soon as the songs are live, I register them on the UK PRS system, and the payments from that can be much more pleasing. A few million streams in Europe and the US can pay decent money.
For this experiment I have tried a new system CDBaby offered - promotion via a system called hear now. I paid them 28 US Dollars to promote the album. Just to see what happens. There is a little web page set up that makes your music available with links.
This is what you get for $28 hearNow link
I'll give it a few months then come back and update this topic and let you know what info I get and any real response. I won't promote it in any other way myself, so it will be realistic. At one point I nearly gave up - the Carpenters just too much trouble. I thought of bands like the Eagles, known for their youtube takedowns - especially Hotel California. I'd imagine releasing a cover of any Eagles songs would be worse than this example.
If you have had success or failure - please feel free to add them here. It could make life easier for people knowing they are not alone in release woes!
