{"id":208666,"date":"2024-08-13T22:16:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T21:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=208666"},"modified":"2024-08-13T22:47:17","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T21:47:17","slug":"roblox-strikes-deal-with-distrokid-but-indie-artists-wont-be-paid-any-money-from-it1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/roblox-strikes-deal-with-distrokid-but-indie-artists-wont-be-paid-any-money-from-it1\/","title":{"rendered":"Roblox strikes deal with DistroKid \u2013 but indie artists won’t be paid any money from it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Revenues at gaming giant Roblox are soaring – forecast<\/a> to hit $3.5 billion across the course of this year.<\/p>\n

But indie artists hoping to earn any of that money for the use of their music on the platform might want to look away now.<\/p>\n

Roblox has struck a new partnership with DistroKid, MBW has discovered. The pact enables DK’s artists to make their music available to Roblox’s 80 million daily active users.<\/a><\/p>\n

Only there’s a catch. When said artists’ music is played on Roblox… they will be paid ZERO for the privilege.<\/p>\n

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Roblox has partnered with DistroKid<\/strong> to launch an invite-only beta program that lets independent artists opt-in to having their music distributed to the gaming platform.<\/p>\n

As per the opt-in form, obtained by MBW, indie artists signing up for the beta program “are granting rights for Roblox developers to use [their] music on a gratis basis”.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere on the opt-in form, artists are informed that “opting-in to the beta does not guarantee your music will be added to Roblox, which is at their discretion”.<\/p>\n

Artists must also own 100% of their publishing rights and not be registered with a PRO such as ASCAP<\/strong> or BMI.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“DistroKid is always looking for new ways artists can be discovered and make their music available.”<\/p>\n

Amanda Ferri, DistroKid<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MBW reached out to DistroKid for a comment about its new partnership with Roblox.<\/p>\n

DistroKid’s VP Marketing, Amanda Ferri, told us in a statement: “DistroKid is always looking for new ways artists can be discovered and make their music available.”<\/p>\n

Added Ferri: “Working with Roblox aligns perfectly with that mission. We’re stoked about our collaboration with Roblox and can\u2019t wait to reveal more soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Roblox has become particularly close with the music industry in recent years, as part of the wider convergence of the music and gaming worlds.<\/p>\n

All three major music companies have been associated with in-game events, promotions and partnerships with and on the platform, such as Universal Music Group’s Beat Galaxy music hub<\/a>, Warner Music Group’s Rhythm City<\/a> and Sony Music’s partnership<\/a> with Roblox in 2021 to bring its artists to the metaverse. Warner Music Group<\/a> invested <\/a>in Roblox in January 2021.<\/p>\n

In March,\u00a0Universal and Republic Records launched<\/a> a new product in Roblox dubbed\u00a0Boombox<\/strong>, described as \u201can ad-supported portable music player\u201d embedded in Roblox that allows labels to launch playlists and integrate them into the gaming space dynamically.<\/p>\n

In June,\u00a0STYNGR, a music-in-gaming platform, teamed up<\/a> with Warner Music Group\u00a0to offer ad-free radio stations directly within Roblox.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, in June 2021, a group of indie and major music publishers \u2014 via the NMPA \u2014 sued Roblox<\/a> for over $200 million in damages in the US, alleging widespread copyright infringement by the company. The NMPA struck an agreement<\/a> with Roblox in September of that year, and settled any previous claims against the platform.<\/p>\n

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DistroKid has previously claimed<\/a> to be the \u201cworld\u2019s largest distributor of independent music” and estimates that it distributes 30-40% of all new music in the world.<\/p>\n

The company says that its platform is used by more than 2 million artists.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, in August 2021, DistroKid accepted an investment from Insight Partners, which valued the distribution platform at USD $1.3 billion.<\/a><\/p>\n

Following that transaction, Boston-based growth equity firm\u00a0Silversmith Capital Partners<\/strong>, which\u00a0led DistroKid\u2019s first outside investment in 2018<\/a>, retained \u201ca meaningful ownership position\u201d and remained on DistroKid\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

Spotify<\/a>\u00a0retained its\u00a0minority stake<\/a>\u00a0in DistroKid when it received the Insight Partners investment;\u00a0a few months later, SPOT<\/strong>\u00a0offloaded two-thirds of its stake<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0$167 million<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roblox revenues are forecast to hit $3.5bn across the course of this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":208667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5266,129012],"class_list":["post-208666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-distrokid","tag-roblox"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}