> “Spotify killed revenue flow for anyone outside of the publishers and big artists/ players. Spotify basically killed any money coming from the physical distribution”
To the contrary, physical distribution was only available to big artists/players. There was mostly no way for independent artists to get into the record stores.
Streaming (via distributors like DistroKid) made it possible for millions of independent artists to make money from their music.
I think most people don’t know this (I didn’t until recently) but you can upload documents to ChatGPT if you’re a paying member:
https://chat.openai.com
Choose GPT4 and Code Interpreter (you have to turn it on in your Settings).
Incentives in the music industry are setup such that any company offering promotional services to artists (ad agency, PR firm, promoter, radio promo, marketing department, etc) can quietly go to fiverr.com, buy 100,000 bot streams for $20, then take credit for their client’s rise in popularity—-getting the artist to pay again.
Which, because of how streaming services pay, steals from artists who have real/organic streams.
Honestly I don't feel that Fandalism (which is also a one-man biz, too, I spose) added that much to DistroKid's growth. It was mostly some press, some blogs, and a good product. But yes- having a built-in user base with Fandalism didn't hurt.
In hindsight, the other distributors are so clunky and expensive, the bar is super low. Like, if you wanted to compete with Google search it would be hard. But if you wanted to compete with something moderately terrible (with all due respect. i do respect my elder competitors and are thankful for the road they've paved) -- it's much easier to grow.
Yes we provide lots of stats to artists. No, we're not planning on a recommendation system (plenty of online radio thingy thangies that are already great!)
2 full-time support reps (who are amazing), so we're not really one-man, anymore.
> How are you able to find infringing music?
Obviously I can't get into details (lest the baddies figure out how to get in). But we have about 40 different checks to make sure the artist is who they say they are (or manually verify if the check fails) and other things.
But VCs are still investing in startups that do what DistroKid does. Those startups all take a percentage of royalties. So there's probably a sense of "if we release the new Jay-Z record, we'll make that $100MM revenue..."
DistroKid doesn't take any percentage. While we're leaving money on the table, the hacker in me (in the HN sense) kinda feels good that we're f*cking it up for everyone. At least I hope that's what we're doing. \m/