MUSIC DISTRIBUTION AND BLACK BOX ROYALTIES

It is not enough to advise artists against uploading contents on blogs for free downloads. A step should be taken further to encourage them to engage the services of music aggregators or distributors to ensure that their contents are available on as many digital stores as possible. One good turn deserves another, right?!
Engaging the services of music aggregators or distributors has numerous benefits to you as an artist. Some of them include:
- Making your content available on as many digital platforms as possible.
- Generating International Standard Recording Codes (ISRC) and Universal Product Codes (UPC) which will be used to identify and track sales of your sound recordings and ensure that your royalties are administered properly.
You can still do this on your own anyway, for those who prefer DIY
This brings us to the issue of Black Box Royalties
As an artist, it is pertinent to let professionals handle these things while you drive your creative bus so you do not get worn out in the process.
BLACK BOX ROYALTIES
“This refers to monies due to songwriters and publishers where digital music services and the company they hire to help them in processing such payments are unable to match compositions to recordings, either because of poor or inadequate metadata or lack of registration… often by DIY indie artists and songwriters.” — billboard.com
Except music is a hobby to you, the goal is to generate revenue. To achieve this, you have to distribute properly with complete and accurate metadata; generate the necessary codes to identify and track sales and the exploitation of your content among other things.
