I am a recent Harvard Law School graduate intellectual property attorney as well as a customer of Distrokid (username: composeroncrack(at)gmail.com). I am a legit artist with around 27.000 monthly listeners on Spotify. I write this under this sub, as I want to warn as many independent artists about Distrokid. Also because moderators at the Distrokid sub deletes any negative comment and bans the relevant user immediately - I would not expect anything less.

A month ago, I saw that all my music under my Distrokid account was deleted, my Distrokid bank was zeroed and all my royalty reports were vanished without any notice or explanation. I wrote to Distrokid's legal department and support team as follows: "I have been very careful about any copyright issues regarding my music to the extent that I even make sure that the typefaces on my album arts are not infringing any copyright and I have never used any artificial streaming services. Yet, my account is terminated and my money has disappeared without giving me any reason or notice.

I hereby request the immediate reinstatement of all my music as well as my money under my distrokid account.If my account is terminated due to a false copyright claim, please explain the situation, as I will be submitting a DMCA counterclaim.

If my account is deleted due to any other reason, I would like to prove evidence to resolve the issue "to your reasonable satisfaction" as per Section 7(g) of your Distribution Agreement. If you do not provide me with any reasonable grounds for withholding my money and deleting my music without any notice, I will commence legal action on the grounds of your breach of your fiduciary duty as well as your non-compliance with your user and distribution agreement."

Distrokid's legal department stated that they will review the case and get back to me asap. However, I have not received any response since then. I reached Spotify who confirmed that all my streams (which were around 30.000 per month for the songs that I had under my Distrokid account, which were all opted into Spotify's Discovery Mode) are legit and there is no fraudulent/suspicious activity regarding my profile. I sent screenshots of my conversation with Spotify to Distrokid's legal department and explained that "Spotify stated that there has been no fraudulent/suspicious activity regarding my profile and that all my stats are accurate. I sent you screenshots of my conversation below. Your Distribution Agreement states in Section 7(g) that the user will forfeit "any monies that are attributable to his fraud, infringement or other illegal activity". Apparently my Spotify streams, which were around 30.000 per month for the releases that I had under this Distrokid account (also, most of them were in Discovery Mode), are not fraudulent. Therefore, I am requesting my Distrokid bank to be unlocked. In addition, as I said earlier, please let me know if my account is terminated due to a copyright claim, I will send a counterclaim to your designated agent."

However, still no response.

Distrokid deletes your music and withholds your hard-earned money in the blink of an eye but gives you silence treatment when an explanation is requested. I am absolutely disgusted by this unprofessional behaviour. I seriously think that this is shady and they are doing this to tens of thousands of users. I strongly recommend you to withdraw your money immediately because Distrokid may withhold it anytime, literally anytime, without any explanation as they did to me and to very much established artists like Samuel Kim (please google it). There is absolutely no accountability in music distribution business when it comes to independent artists, and you will never know whether my money, and the money that Distrokid has witheld from tens of thousands of users in the previous years, is sent back to streaming services, or used to generate interest, or sent directly to Philip Kaplan's pockets. I am disgusted, absolutely disgusted by this company's acts.