This is one of the most important questions to ask before choosing a subscription-based music distributor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DistroKid’s Leave a Legacy option exists specifically to allow selected releases to remain live after cancellation or a lapsed membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That means artists should not assume every normal release will simply remain in stores permanently once the subscription ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Music distribution isn’t just a one-time file upload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The distributor continues to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
receive royalties<\/p>\n\n\n\n
process store reports<\/p>\n\n\n\n
manage metadata<\/p>\n\n\n\n
handle relationships with DSPs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
account to artists<\/p>\n\n\n\n
manage rights issues<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That ongoing service has a cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DistroKid funds much of it through annual subscriptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leave a Legacy is one route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Transferring the music to another distributor before cancelling is another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For artists with large catalogues, transferring may make more economic sense than purchasing permanence extras across everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A new artist might think:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$24.99 is cheap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A better question is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What will keeping my catalogue live cost over twenty years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That may lead you to a completely different conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some distribution models avoid annual catalogue-maintenance subscriptions entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RouteNote Free, for example, has no annual distribution fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s not automatically better for everyone because RouteNote Free takes 15% of net revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it shows why artists need to compare business models rather than prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is one of the most important questions to ask before choosing a subscription-based music distributor. DistroKid’s Leave a Legacy option exists specifically to allow selected releases to remain live after cancellation or a lapsed membership. That means artists should not assume every normal release will simply remain in stores permanently once the subscription ends. Why would a distributor remove music? Music distribution isn’t just a one-time file upload. The distributor continues to: receive royalties process store reports manage metadata handle relationships with DSPs account to artists manage rights issues That ongoing service has a cost. DistroKid funds much of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2365,1378,2364],"coauthors":[2],"class_list":["post-3848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cancels","tag-distrokid","tag-remove"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n