does distrokid copyright [Beginner's Guide]

Last updated : Sept 18, 2022

Does DistroKid take care of copyright?

DistroKid does not copyright your music for you or register your songs for copyright, DistroKid simply distributes your music. DistroKid also does not register your music with any publishers or performance rights organizations.

Is my music automatically copyrighted?

To gain the basic protections of Copyright Law, you need to copyright your music. Luckily, this is really easy to do! In fact, music is automatically copyrighted the moment you create it in a tangible medium; like on paper or on an audio recording.

Do Spotify songs have copyright?

Spotify allows you to see any song's credits on its service. This includes information such as the artist, writers, and producers. While there's no explicit copyright information, the copyright will likely belong to one of the people or companies named in the credits.

Should I copyright my music before putting it on DistroKid?

It's not a must to copyright your music before you distribute it. If you want to take the risk and you don't feel like copyrighting is in your budget, go ahead and do so. You do have proof of upload when you publish your work on social media, streaming sites, and even when you communicate in emails.

Does DistroKid delete your music?

If you don't renew your subscription to DistroKid, services will remove your music. The subscription is billed on an annual basis from the day you sign up. To prevent this, you can opt any upload into DistroKid's optional Leave a Legacy extra.

How do I know if a song is copyrighted?

Public domain songs: The website PDInfo not only has information about copyright law; it also lists all the songs available in the public domain. Typically, these are songs composed or recorded in 1926 or before, as of January 2022.

How can I protect my music without copyright?

1. A "musical composition" consists of music and any accompanying words.
2. A "sound recording" consists of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds.

Can I copyright my music for free?

If you have written a song (lyrics, music, or both), you may register that song, completely for free, with any of several commercial licensing agencies. Registering with these agencies is designed to help you sell licensed use of your song, but it does not provide legal protection for your copyright.

Does DistroKid master your music?

The "Mastered For iTunes" label is a badge of sonic approval that you see on most major label tracks and almost none from idie and D.I.Y. artists. A new add-on service from DistroKid makes it possible for any artist to get the "Mastered For iTunes" certification.

How much of a song can you use without copyright?

Any use of copyrighted material without permission is, according to U.S. copyright law, copyright infringement. It does not matter if you use one second or the entire song, using copyrighted materials without the consent or permission of the copyright owner, constitutes copyright infringement.

How does Spotify detect copyright?

To be scanned, the technology requires each song to be scanned using a "lead sheet," a form of musical notation common in the music industry. The interface's plagiarism detection utilizes artificial intelligence "trained on a plurality of preexisting encoded lead sheets,” according to patent filings.

How does Spotify avoid copyright?

In general, Spotify gets two classes of licenses for the music it distributes: Sound Recording License agreements, which cover the rights to a particular recording, and Musical Composition License Agreements, which cover the people who own the rights to the song. Recording licenses.

How do I copyright my own music?

To register a claim to copyright in a musical composition, you must submit the following to the Copyright Office: (1) a completed application form; (2) a nonrefundable filing fee; and (3) the required “deposit copies” of your work. This circular highlights issues common to registrations of musical compositions.

Does TuneCore copyright my music?

No, TuneCore does not register songs with the Copyright Office. Pursuant to the US copyright act, once a work is in a fixed form i.e. recorded to mp3 or CD, or written down, you are protected under copyright laws.

What are the cons of DistroKid?

Cons are as follows: They charge a yearly fee for YouTube monetization on top of taking a commission. Reports and analytics are very basic unless you upgrade to more expensive plans. You need to keep paying the yearly fee to keep your songs on the stores.

How long until DistroKid deletes my music?

All delete requests will be processed within the next 1-2 days. alright cool. Also if I stop paying the annual fee will our album be taken down?

Is TuneCore better than DistroKid?

Winner: DistroKid Both services upload your music to streaming services and give you 100% of your earnings, minus banking fees/applicable taxes, but DistroKid's subscription service is far cheaper and better than TuneCore's.

How long do songs have copyright?

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

How do I know if an artist is DMCA free?

1. Know if the music is before or after 1923. If it is earlier, it is public domain music and is not copyrighted.
2. Know if it is under the public domain. To do this you should go to the PDinfo portal and check it.
3. Search on YouTube. Use the platform's search engine to search for your song and check the comments.

How many beats Can I copyright at once?

If the authorship and ownership are the same for each song than yes, you can register the copyright for up to 10 songs as a single copyright filing.

Check these related keywords for more interesting articles :
Reviews on trademark engine
How does copyright expire
Trademark application attorney fees
Intellectual property policy example
How to put a patent on something
Registered trademark meaning wikipedia
Are high school names trademarked
Trademark infringement letter template uk
How to write intellectual property rights
Trademark registration curacao
How to repair damaged patent shoes
How to start brand shirt
How to trademark a slogan for free
How to start a mezcal brand
Trademark register dubai

Write a comment

my original video about district kid is one of my most watched videos ever thank you all for the positive comments I'm so glad that you found it helpful you had some great questions as well so today I'm answering 20 questions about district kid the stuff I didn't cover in that video but so many of you asked if you haven't watched that video about district kid check it out first because I cover all the basic information like what district it is how it works the different plans how you get paid by the way the information in this video is not legal advice I always encourage you to do your own research and get a lawyer if you need real legal advice if you're new around here I'm son Jesse and I have tons of videos about music production and gear reviews on my channel consider subscribing if you haven't already I'll be sure to make it worth your click all right the first question is probably the most popular one you asked if I release the song on Spotify through district kid is it automatically protected from copyright infringement it's not the releasing of the song on Spotify that protects you it's the actual creation of the music u.s. copyright law protects your music when it's created for the first time by you so yes you are protected as soon as you create music still formally applying for a copyright will give you some extra protection I'll add a link in the description to read more about it alright number two I don't live in the u.s. how can district it help me collect royalties you can upload a district kid from wherever you live and it'll be available wherever those platforms stream for example if Spotify is available in your country uploaded through district kid and it'll be available to your friends and listeners in your country on Spotify and everywhere else number three do I need to register my music with BMI or ASCAP what happens if I don't BMI and ASCAP are organizations that help musicians get paid for the performance of their music in public places like bars and clubs malls coffee shops you don't have to register your music with them but they do offer some other nice services ASCAP only charges a one-time $50 fee so it's worth backing out all right next question which should come first my district in account or my Spotify artist account what's the best way to do it okay if you don't have an existing artist page on Spotify the district conserva swil create one during your first upload if you already have a spotify artist account you can connect to it during that upload process well that was easy next up what if someone else does a cover of my song and uploads it through district kid how can I claim copyright infringement alright if someone has uploaded your song without your permission you can reach out to each store like Spotify with a DMCA takedown request you might need to Google around for each stores process for that it's different for different stores alright does district kid own the rights to my music in any way legally no district kid does not claim rights to any of your uploads you may see some people claim that hey district it is stealing my song right honestly I don't even know how this would be legally possible it just doesn't make sense they're not taking your rights away next we have a few questions about your songs and YouTube when district it uploads my song to YouTube where does it go YouTube will decide which channel your music goes into I found that they actually place my song under a topic called San JC a topic artists are automatically assigned a topic page this happens for everyone including Drake the topic page has content that's available in YouTube's music app and their streaming service but if you already have a YouTube channel you can associate your channel to your district it account I'll put a link in the description with instructions on how to do that next so what if I've already posted my songs on YouTube do I need to delete them okay so you don't need to delete them when you upload to Google Play your songs are also added to YouTube as an art track which shows your album art as the video with your music playing you can still upload your own music video for your song in fact most major artists upload via a service like district kid to get an art track onto YouTube and separately upload a music video directly to YouTube okay more about YouTube if I already posted my song on YouTube and then district it does the same can i still monetize my video good question you can still monetize your own videos now if you've opted into district kids YouTube money service which adds your music to YouTube's Content ID system it checks all over YouTube for videos that may be using your music then collects ad revenue for you and if it finds your upload you may see claims from audio more interest rate recordings but you can safely just ignore those claims district kid will collect the ad revenue and send it back to you anyway hey if you're finding this information useful hit the like button and if you haven't joined district kid yet you can use the link in the description to get a discount to sign up it's an affiliate link and you can create one as well to pass on a discount to your friends and make a little money for yourself unless you want district kid to keep all the cash get paid people Spotify isn't available in my country well district kids still upload the song for me and get my Spotify account created and verified yes they will you don't need to have Spotify in your country to earn money from your music on it can't be that what's the benefit of using district kid over a muse or tune core from what I've seen so far the main benefits of using district kid is that it's cheaper than most other services but you have to do your own research on that some services offer some benefits that others don't and some service fee methods may make better sense for you okay I found my song available on Instagram in the US and UK but not in my own home country what happened okay most uploads appear worldwide in every country that the different stores or streaming services support summer leases may not be distributed to all countries or even they may be removed based on language explicit content licensing and other various issues I guess it's gonna be kind of hard to figure out what happened every country's laws are different and the way streaming services work in different countries may be different too next question does district 8 process royalty in all countries okay in whatever country a store or streaming service operates in district kid will collect the royalties for you and you get to keep all those earnings it's a nice thing about district it okay I like this one what about cover songs can I upload them yes you can upload cover songs and district kid will charge you twelve dollars a year for that song to manage the license it's to pay the original songwriter check out the link in the description for these specifics but yeah you can upload cover songs next question I've already released the song through level music or CD Baby or whatever how do I transfer them to district it the simple answer is to upload the song t

Thanks for your comment Arlie Mikos, have a nice day.
- Calvin Dieteman, Staff Member

hello my friend in this video i'm going to answer the question does distrokid copyright your music for you so distrokid does not copyright your music for you or register your songs for copyright distrokid simply distributes your music distrokit also does not register music with any publishers or performance rights organizations however with that said there's actually something very interesting when it comes to copyright and music that you'll definitely want to stick around for but before i continue i wanted to let you know that i've also written an article on this topic as you can see right here so if you'd like to follow along or if you simply prefer the written word format simply google does district copyright your music best friends club so jumping right back into this although district does not copyright your music for you they do mention this in their faq article on this topic they say that this is not legal advice and we are not your lawyer but under the present copyright law which became effective january 1st 1978 a work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created a work is created when it is fixed or embodied in a copy or phono record for the first time neither registration in the copyright office nor publication is required for copyright protection under the law so essentially what they're saying here is that once you've written your music say if you say you write it down or if you actually simply record it which basically all of us do after making music anyways by creating that recording you've actually just copyrighted your music obviously you can then take that work to a copyright office and take that copyright a step further but it's actually not necessary but we'll dive a little bit more into this right now so they do go on to mention that you may want to go through proper copyright registration for your work because it can be helpful in terms of copyright claims and infringement suits if it does get to that so essentially the act of recording your music is the first natural step in copyright protection from there you have the option to pursue formal copyright registration if you personally feel that it's important so if you did want to go the full route of copyright how much does that cost and what does that process kind of look like the cost to copyright a song is 35 when done online however costs can range to at least 85 dollars per work when you choose paper registration or if there are multiple artists or performers so i'm not a lawyer but i found a great article written by jane haskins esquire i think that's esq's esquire who is a lawyer and who goes into more detail on the topic in that article you can find a link to that in the article that i made link in the description as well as if you'd like to google it um you know what to do but in particular uh the things that seemed important were the steps to copy writing a song which goes as follows first is recording your song registering for an account at the us copyright office website then filling out the copyright registration application paying the registration fee and submitting a copy of your song and again you do not actually need to copyright your music because any original work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created it's your intellectual property and thus you only copyright if it is an original piece of music of course but what if you are uploading a cover song or a remix using district how does that kind of change things you can upload cover songs to spotify and apple music using distrokid they charge a fee of 12 per year to keep the song up and will take care of all the legal and licensing fees and all that work for you district describes a cover song as a piece of music that was originally written by someone else that is performed and recorded by you the important thing to note here is that the song must be performed and recorded by you it can't include samples of the original piece of music that was performed and recorded by the original artist so for 12 that actually does sound like a pretty good deal to me and district even mentions that they will do all of this for you uh obtaining the licenses paying the original songwriters each month keeping up to date on copyright laws affecting music and doing the things described here and here which are basically the copyright government's uh website information on going through the proper process of maintaining copyright licenses and all that so all in all it doesn't seem like a bad deal at all and then naturally when it comes to remixes you can only upload remixes with district if you have the permission to upload the remix the reason for this is because you cannot upload any music that contains uncleared samples so essentially you can upload remixes of your own music or remixes of any songs that you have the original artist's permission to do so and really quickly if you did want to do this in district this is kind of what the process looks like you'd sign into district click on the upload tab uh list the original artist name in the artist band name field and in the song title field what you need to make sure is that you format the title you format the title like this song name in brackets feet remixer and then in the square brackets you would write remixers remix so whatever your name is my case that would be best friends club remix uh in step three you need to make sure to replace song name with the actual song name and remix it with the name of the artist that is doing the remix in this case that would be you and then according to district this will help stores make sure that all the proper tags and credits are in order and they will remove the feet remixer part when actually tagging it in the profile and on spotify and all that good stuff so hopefully you now have a better understanding of how copyright works in general and specifically how it works in relation to working with district if you did find this video useful make sure you like and subscribe and all that good stuff so that you can keep seeing more videos like this other than that good luck on your next release whether it is a remix and cover song or an original song and i'll see you in the next video my friend have a good one

Thanks Stacy your participation is very much appreciated
- Calvin Dieteman

About the author

Calvin Dieteman

I've studied computational archaeology at Baptist Health Sciences University in Memphis and I am an expert in operating systems. I usually feel frustrated. My previous job was office clerk I held this position for 7 years, I love talking about astronomy and dog training. Huge fan of Frederick Douglass I practice speed skating and collect steiff teddy bears.