Music publishing made simple for independent artists

If you're a DistroKid member, you already collect royalties for your song recordings (also known as your master recordings).

But if you're a songwriter, you may be generating publishing royalties on your compositions (also known as mechanical and public performance royalties). You're just not collecting them yet.

That's where we come in: register with us as a songwriter, then DistroKid acts as your publishing administrator. We'll find and collect your publishing royalties. Payouts go straight to your DistroKid Bank.

You still own your music. We help you get paid for writing it.

Nope. You own your music; we just help collect what you're owed for writing it.

With DistroKid Publishing, we become your publishing administrator. Basically, you give us permission to go out and collect publishing royalties on your behalf.

DistroKid Publishing is a publishing administration service for artists who've distributed their music through DistroKid.

That means you need to be a DistroKid member who's released music to sign up for DistroKid Publishing.

Artists on DistroKid can opt in to get notified when they become eligible for Publishing by going to the "Publishing" page from the top navigation bar.

DistroKid Publishing is available for original songs you wrote or co-wrote, even if you only own a share of the rights. Songs that aren't eligible include cover songs, mash-ups, remixes, and fully AI-generated music.

A PRO is a Performing Rights Organization. You don't need a PRO to start collecting publishing royalties with DistroKid Publishing, but affiliating with one will give you access to even more songwriting royalties.

Yep. Just check that your PRO is listed here.

We'll also need your IPI number when you sign up with us. Find out more about that here.

All DistroKid members get 100% of their recording royalties.

Artists on DistroKid can also sign up for DistroKid Publishing to collect their publishing royalties (also known as composition or songwriting royalties).

DistroKid Publishing includes mechanical royalties and public performance royalties.

As soon as your publishing earnings as a songwriter exceed $10, global collection begins and your first royalty payment will arrive about 6-9 months later. After that, publishing royalties will be paid quarterly (this is the standard payment schedule for all publishers).

DistroKid Publishing has a $75 one-time setup fee per songwriter. You keep 80% of publishing royalties.

There's a 20% commission on publishing royalties because they're a lot more complicated than streaming royalties. To collect them for you, we register your songs, track them worldwide on an ongoing basis, and deal with all the time-consuming paperwork and data stuff.