Ditto Music Distribution: Buyer’s Guide

About The Ditto Music Distribution Service

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Ditto music distribution was the first company to really come for Distrokid. The pricing of Distrokid’s music distribution service started at $20 annually but they didn’t clearly state that it was a starting point. At that rate, artists couldn’t get so much as a release date. On top of that, things like Content ID, automatic distribution to new stores, and distribution to audio recognition services came at the cost of additional annual fees per release. Distrokid also had a limited inventory of stores. Ditto gave artists most of what they’d get with a premium music distributor like Tunecore but for Distrokid’s price.

With Ditto, artists got to pay $20 for unlimited distribution to an unlimited number of stores while keeping 100% of their revenue for streams, downloads, and even Content ID. They really should have become the dominant music distribution service with that offer but their issue with streaming fraud accusations really threw a wrench in their operation.

The problem wasn’t that Ditto itself was engaging in streaming fraud, it was the opposite. They got bombarded with negative reviews from artists that were flagged for streaming fraud. These artists claimed that Ditto was falsely accusing them of streaming fraud in a scheme to steal their hard-earned royalties. Ditto had a zero-tolerance policy where once you got caught, you were out. Your revenue got taken and given back to Spotify, all of it. Other distributors weren’t so heavy-handed. Most ignored streaming fraud altogether, others would quietly roll back an artist’s numbers to what they would be minus the fake streams and pay them for their real streams. You didn’t really have a situation where you were hearing of any other artists being banned from using a service for streaming fraud. As a result of that, artists read the reviews and believed Ditto was up to no good.

As streaming fraud has become a major industry problem, all the other music distribution services have been forced to take the same approach. Now, it’s not as uncommon to see reviews where just about every distributor is being accused of using false claims of streaming fraud to steal money. Often it’s not even musicians, just scammers who are legitimately using streaming fraud to steal money from real musicians and are upset they got caught.

Unfortunately for Ditto, the market has changed. Plenty of other companies have stepped up with the same offer as Ditto but with none of the baggage. The most damaging company to adopt the unlimited model had to be Tunecore because of its stature in the music distribution market. Ditto, however, isn’t dependent on the Ditto music distribution service. They have something like a label tier called Ditto Plus, Ditto Management, music promotion services, and a music investment platform called Opulous. With so much going on, I don’t know how committed they remain to their music distribution service. In the current landscape, I can make an argument for Ditto Plus, but I don’t exactly see where Ditto fits. The key difference between Ditto and the big 3 of Tunecore, CD Baby, and Distrokid is the ability to keep 100% of Content ID revenue. Your choice comes down to whether you feel that’s enough.

Note. Ditto now requires artists to submit paperwork to prove their identity in order to receive funds. You have to upload documents like a passport, driver’s license, or ID card and submit a selfie video.

Ditto Music Distribution Details