1. Editorial or recording label. You must specify the name of the Label of your record or album respectively for each album.

2. Own label. If your album is not linked to any record label, you can specify a custom label name or alias (such as your artist name) of your choice in this field. Make sure that the name provided is not misleading or deceptive, nor violate the laws of intellectual property.

3. Label's Name Length. The name of a label should not be too large, otherwise, it may cause metadata conflict for some channels

1. Category prices. You must choose a price category from one of four price categories. This does not ensure an identical price in all channels, since the channels have the right to determine the final price of an product, depending on the territory and currency of a sale. The categories are indicative of the range of price you desire for each album individually.

The price categories (in the platform) are:

Budget: equivalent to an economic or the most affordable price.

Mid: equivalent to a standard or common prince in each channel.

Full: equivalent to a higher or more expensive than the standard price.

Premium: equivalent to the more expensive price.

2. Release dates. Depending on the date indicated in this section, the album will be published in the channels sooner or later. If the album is distributed previously to the release date, it will not be made public until the date indicated before the distribution. If the album is distributed after the release date, it will be directly published within the 2 to 10 work days, from its distribution.

3. License. You can choose between two main types of license, these are: Copyright or Creative Commons. Copyright ensure a full protection of all intellectual rights for each rights’ owner or holder, while Creative Commons has several types of licenses for different types of interests. For more information, go to: http://creativecommons.org/).

For publication of an album, it’s required to indicate:

(C) The Copyright owner or holder, who is generally the author of the work.

(P) The sound recording owner or Publishing right’s holder, who is generally the producer or record label.

In the case of groups or bands where rights are shared, the group or band name can be indicated in both cases mentioned above.

4. Territories. If you do not have publishing rights for all territories, or it is not of your interest the publication in all territories, you may indicate the desired territories in the “License” section in the platform.

1. Versions. To indicate that a Version Track is different from the original, please use the corresponding field for this purpose. Version information will not be accepted as part of an album title. You should also use standard spelling, without abbreviations, and make a proper use of capitalization.

2. Name of the original artist on parody, version, karaoke, tribute and cover tracks or albums. For Parody, Karaoke, Tribute and Cover albums, the name of the original artist should not be displayed in any artist field on track level, nor at the album's level. You must use clarifying language to ensure that consumers will not think those original artists are performing on your album or track.

Karaoke exceptions: The karaoke track titles can refer to the original artist. Please, use sentences to clarify that these artist aren't the performers. Use sentences as “Originally Performed by... (original artist name)”.

3. Name of the original artist in the track or album’s titles. The title of a track, as the title of a cover of tribute album, must not make any reference to the original artist. Do not use phrases such as: “Original Performed by”, “In the Style of”, “Tribute to”, “Cover of” or similar.

4. Information of karaoke version. The karaoke albums or tracks must be indicated on the corresponding field as “Instrumental” of “Karaoke” versions. The primary genre of this king of album or tracks must also be set as “Karaoke”.

5. Deceptive or misleading information. Tribute or cover albums must not be deceptive or misleading. Do not use genres, popular song lyrics, or the original artist names as the album title, track title, or artist for karaoke. Content that is considered deceptive or misleading will not be accepted and distributed.

6. Sound-a-likes. Sound-a-likes (cover songs that sound like copies of the original) or unauthorized remixes with deceptive or misleading audio, will not be distributed.

7. Cover licenses. For a cover you will need to present an authorization signed by the original rights owner - who will allow you to use the work for commercial purposes.

You can obtain a license through different online services, as for example www.easysonglicensing.com. You need the license only in case that the adapted songs belong to an Anglo-Saxon area. If the songs are from a latin area, South America and Occidental Europe - excluding Aglo-Saxon countries - it is enough to mention at the track level the original composer and the publishing house (label and/or producer rights owner) assigning their correspondent roles. For versions from territories that we don't comment here, please, contact our Support team.

If the version modifies substantially the work, as a radical variation of the lyrics/musical content, you must present a more specific rights owner permission to distribute the content. The documentation reported has to be contrastable and true.

Attention: Do not confuse the term "version" or "cover" with a "remix". If you did a remix or if you are using any recording sample that belongs to another person, you will have to request the authorization from the original master owner.

8. Continuous mixes and DJ sets. Dj sets (with own or other's artists tracks) and continuous mixes (that is, putting all the tracks of an album together in a single track creating a continuous mix) are not allowed

1. Accuracy. Albums and / or tracks titles, should always match the cover image titles as accurately as possible without any class of abbreviation.

2. Additional Information. All titles of albums and / or tracks should not include additional information, unless it is really necessary for the identification of the content.

3. Singles. A disc must be identified as a Single format disc when:

If it contains from 1 to 3 tracks with the same title. It means, variations of the same song.

If it contains from 1 to 2 tracks with different titles. It means, up to two different songs.

If your release has an approximate duration up to 10 minutes.

For all Single format discs containing a single track, the disc title and track title must be the same.

4. EPs. A disc must be identified as an EP if:

It has 2 tracks and the duration of both is at least 10 minutes.

It contains from 4 to 6 tracks with the same title. It means, variations of the same song.

It contains from 3 to 6 tracks with different titles. It means, that each song will be different.

It has a total duration from 10 to 30 minutes.

5. Album. A disc must be identified as an album if it overcomes one of the previous ones.

6. Audios must match. Audio files and track titles must always match. It's not accepted to upload an audio to the non-corresponding track.

7. Generic titles. Do not use generic titles for the tracks. Titles as: Track 01, Track 02, will not be accepted until they are really the original track titles. This same rule is applied for the release titles, titles as "Album", "EP" or "Single" won't be accepted.

8. Multiple titles for album and tracks. The albums and / or tracks containing multiple titles must be separated with a slash. Please insert a space before and after the slash.

9. Silent and hidden tracks. The silent tracks, hidden tracks, and ghost tracks, should be clearly indicated in the version field. It is possible that we need a justification to know the reason why they are included and the duration in relation to the whole content.

10. Tracks version information. To differentiate between multiple versions of the same track, or indicate that a track is different from its original version, use the corresponding description in its version field.

11. Use of "Exclusive" or "Limited Edition". The titles of albums and / or tracks must not contain terms such as "Exclusive" or "Limited Edition", because the titles are a permanent part of the content.

12. References physical contents and / or digital, or content which is not included. The album titles should not include terms referring to contents which are not included in the album. Such as, physical formats, digital formats, and / or geographic location. Some examples are: E-Release, Digital Version, Digital Only, Digital Download, with Booklet, European Edition, American Edition, etc.

13. Unnecessary version information. The standard version, i.e., the original version of a track, must not include additional information. For example: Original Version, Album Version, Original Mix, etc.

14. Live content. If a track is recorded live, it must be indicated in the version field as "Live", " Ao Vivo", "En Vivo", and so on, accordingly to the language of the album. If all tracks are recorded live, it must also be indicated in the version field of the album.

15. “Deluxe Edition” / “Extended” and “Bonus Tracks” use. A "Deluxe Edition” or “Extended” release can be published when a previous album version exists - providing additional material to the first one; the incorporation of the old material can't be omitted . As well, a “Bonus Track” will be accepted if it is included in an release like that. It must be indicated on the field “version or remix”. In no case will be accepted a track title as “Bonus Track”.

16. Censoring Words. Artist names, track titles, and album titles must be submitted in the original form that was intended by the artist. Explicit words are automatically censored in some channels, and would appear as for example: f**k, or s**t. So do not insert the asterisks in the titles.

17. Side-by-side translations: Side-by-side translation in korean are not allowed by the channel (this means, translating the title to the english and including it in the own title as a part of it). (For example: "이카루스" is correct, but "Rise 이카루스" won't be accepted)

Please, be sure to accomplish all the following requirements in order to distribute your release correctly, thereby preventing additional updates and other arrangements that would imply additional costs to the distribution.

1. Artist name choice. Before distributing your album, make sure that no other artists is currently using the same artist or band name (similar or identical), since this can cause conflicts in the channels, and your albums may be combined under the catalog of the other artist with similar artist or band name, or vice-versa.

2. Primary artist assignation. The main artist of an album, must appear as the primary throughout the complete album.

3. Format. The spelling of the artist name, must be correct and consistent across the entire contents of that artist

4. Composer. Composers have to be indicated only at the track level, not at the release level - except if we talk about Singles with only one track.

Non classical music composers have to appear at both levels (track and release). If there are more than 4 composers appearing in all tracks we will have to use “Various Composers” instead to list them one by one.

At the album's level you can use all roles as wanted, as long as all the involved ones (producers, performers, composers, etc.) appear in all tracks without exception.

5. Other information. The artist's name must not include any additional information, such as his role, dates, instrument, former band, webpage, etc.

6. "Various Artists" use. If there are four or more primary artists on the album, the artist name to be mentioned at album’s level must be "Various Artists". Do not include more than three primary artists at album level.

At the track level is preferable that do not appear too many primary artists names. It is important not to confuse the role with "performer". For example, if it's about a band, the band name must appear as primary artist and the members names as performers.

7. Incorrect Display of "Various Artists". Variations or abbreviations of "Various Artists" (eg "V/A", "VA", "Various", "Various Artist" or similar) should not be used as an artist name for the content in English. The translation of "Various Artists" are acceptable, but, only if they are compatible with the language of the content.

8. Compound Artist. Each artist field must only contain one artist name. Two or more performers or groups in the same artist field is considered a compound artist, although artists who are generally listed together as a band are not considered compound artists and can or must be listed together. If it is not the case, and there is more than one performing artist, each artist must be listed individually and assigned as Primary.

9. Generic Artists. Generic artists such as “Chorus”, “Orchestra”, and “Singer”, are not accepted in any genre. The artist names should be specific to a person, a group or band, a show or a production.

10. Original Artist Name in Artist Field. For karaoke, tribute, orgel, parody, cover albums, and ringtones, the name of the original artist must not be displayed in any artist field

1. Mastering. In order to ensure good audio quality, and meet the standards of today's music industry, all audio files, must have undergone a professional mastering before their distribution.

2. Audio quality. The audio files should not have any sound imperfection. Audio files containing any background noise, and/or other sound imperfections will not be accepted for distribution.

Audio type - Audio, Format - flac, Requirements - Minimum of 16 bit, 44.1 Khz, stereo.

Or

Audio type - Audio, Format - Wav, Requirements - Recommended 24 bits, 48Khz or 24 bits 96Khz.

3. Audios and their titles. Audio files must match their respective song or track title.

4. Silences or pauses. Silence cuts, pauses or extended silences at the end of the tracks are not allowed by the channels. If a song ends with a final silence it should last no longer than ten seconds.

1. Quality of images. The cover art must not be any of the following: blurry, pixelated, mismatched, misaligned, rotated, incorrect, or have other quality issues.

2. Links and webpages. The cover art must not contain website addresses, websites that sell music, mention to social media, logos of any store or services related to entertainment, mention to phisical formats, or any external reference of the digital release.

3. Credits and collaborations. The cover art can include credits or other artist's names who are not the primary artist of the release, always in a precise form and without any type of abbreviattion. The introduced information in the cover will have to be reproduced with extreme precision in the metadata and vice versa.

And, similarly, expressions like "all rights reserved" - or equivalent - cannot be used. Not even other redundant or unnecessary information.

The release reference number can appear in the cover, but not the release's UPC or any track's ISRC codes.

4. Tracklisting and illegible texts. The cover art must not contain track listing, as the image will be generally visualized in small formats and it won't be able to appreciate small size texts.

In general, is recommended to use legible fonts in the cover, specially for the sizing.

5. Descriptions and biographies. The cover art must not include albums' descriptions, nor artist's biographies.

6. Telephone or email addresses. The cover art must not contain any telephone number and email addresses.

7. Digital Product. The cover art must not include references to it being a digital product.

8. Pricing. The cover art must not include references to pricing, nor any information with promotional purposes.

9. Pornography. The cover art must not contain pornography or to do any violence apology, neither a URL of any website that contains or links to pornography content.

10. Misleading information. The cover art must not be misleading. For example, prominently depicting or referencing an artist even though the artist does not perform on the album.

11. Missing Content. The cover art must not contain references to content that the album doesn't contain, such as “included DVD” or “includes lyrics.”

12. Offensive Symbolism. The cover art must not contain any kind of symbolism that offends a specific group of persons or ethnicities, such as nazi symbolism restricted by the Strafgesetzbuch section 86a.

13. Irrelevant information. The cover art must not include additional information which are irrelevant to the content's identification, such as album descriptions, artist biography, music genre, instrument with which the album is executed, credits or any text incorporing merely ornamental characters that do not guard an explicit relation with the content.

Preferably in occidental languages contents, it is necessary to avoid the use of extraoccidental or special characters - such as the Asian or Arabic characters, among others - until they guard an explicit, justifiable and coherent relation with the content.

14. Dimensions of cover art. The cover art of all releases must accomplish with all following requirements:

Proportion: Exactly squared

Minimum size: 3000 x 3000px

Maximum size: 5000 x 5000px

Accepted formats: JPG, TIFF or PNG

Mode: RGB (CMYK is not acceptable)

Maximum size of file: 36 MB

The images which do not accomplish with all the above requirement will not be acceptable and may not be shown in the channels.

15. Logos, images and registered brand. Every logo appearing in the cover must be justified in the metadata, including the involved texts. These logos will be accepted if they guard clear relation with the album's content and explain some relevant information - producer, artist, label, etc. Designers or artists -who created the cover design- mentions won't be accepted as any other external content that isn't involved with the release directly. Any registered brand can appear in the cover, or any other person / company / property images institution. Is totally prohibited the explicit or implicit promotion of them.

Their appearance in the cover will only be accepted if they are visually irrelevant and it can only help to clarify the cover's intention, and not to promote any product, brand, institution or company.

Note: a company name or logo will be able to appear in the cover and/or in the metadata only if it accomplishes some relevant role in the release (in a musical or/and publishing point of view), and remain justified in the metadata (for example: as a producer or publisher).

In addition, it will be necessary to report documentation to prove the consent of the involved mentioned institution to use its name.

A Composition is a music asset type that represents the musical work embodied within a master recording (sound recording).

The copyright in the song encompasses the words and music and is owned by the songwriter and/or music publisher.

The copyright in the musical work itself is owned by the songwriter and/or the music publisher, who grant the record label a "mechanical" license to record and distribute the song as part of the record.

Each composition may be embedded within multiple sound recordings but each sound recording will only have one embedded composition asset.

Copyright is the legal right to exclusive publication, production, sale or distribution of a literary or artistic work.

Copyright is granted by law in most countries and in the United States by a federal statute called The Copyright Act of 1976.

Fair Use is an exception in the copyright law that allows small portions of a work to be used without permission for nonprofit, news, educational, or parody purposes.

The doctrine is however often misunderstood. To fall under "Fair Use", only a small portion of the work may be used and the use must not affect the value or marketability of the work.

Selling concert recordings or photocopying sheet music without permission would not fall under fair use.

Check out the following links for more information on Fair Use:

Copyright.gov - Fair Use

The official Copyright Office explanation of Fair Use.

What Is Fair Use?

Useful resource from YouTube about Fair Use.

"Copyright and Fair Use Overview" on Stanford.edu

An article covering Fair Use in detail.

A Music Video is a music asset type that represents audiovisual music content.

Music video assets are generally promotional clips.

Music video assets usually embed sound recordings

Royalties are fees paid to rights owners (normally record labels, publishers, writers and performers) for the use of their work.

HolaTune is a music distributor company, HolaTune help artists, labels and managers sell their music more than 220 download and streaming stores worldwide, while retaining 100 percent of their sales revenue and rights

Clients receive their royalties via PayPal. Please be sure to input your PayPal email address in your account information section in order to be paid properly and on time.

if you do not have access to a Paypal account, you can contact a support representative to find out what other options we have available to be able to get your payment to you.

YouTube Music is YouTube’s streaming platform. Too Lost distributes to both YouTube Music & YouTube Content ID.

When you distribute releases to YouTube Music, you can see videos on YouTube that contain your cover art, your songs & the song information in the description. This is normal, and these videos are monetized – so you will earn money to your HolaTune account when these videos earn revenue from ads and views.

YouTube Music publishes all the content they receive from distributors in “video art” format. This means that every single, EP or album distributed to YouTube Music will publish as an ‘auto-generated’ video using the Cover Art of the release as the video thumbnail and video content.

These songs are also available ad free to YouTube Music subscribers & on the YouTube Music app.

Once a release has been distributed and the corresponding ISRC/UPC codes generated, it cannot be deleted from the catalog.

Our platform needs to keep the metadata registered even if it has been taken down, for accounting purposes.

If you issued a takedown, the content can be removed from all stores or specific stores (it’s your choice!).

However, the release will still appear in your Distribution Portal for the next couple of months. We will continue to collect any overdue royalties, as some may come in months later.

When all outstanding royalties have been collected, the release will be removed after the following reporting quarter.

Meanwhile, it is important that you do not erase the release information, even if it isn’t live in stores.

Remember, deleting the catalog’s metadata does not simply that the channels have taken down the release or that it will be taken down.

1. Go to the Distribution Portal

2. Click on My Account

3. Click on the “Balance” tab.

This tab has various columns and a lot of information available. Here are the definitions to a few of them :

Current Balance: The total amount of earnings from your current catalog. Pending Outpayments: The amounts requested for payout, but have not yet been fulfilled. Pending Invoices: The amount owed to HolaTune (from recoupable royalty advances, sample clearances or project budgets)

Confirmed Total: The amount that is available and can be requested for payout. Unconfirmed: The amount for which we have received sales data, but not the corresponding payment from the channel (this is only available on certain user accounts, and may only be available via download on others) Minimum Payout: The minimum amount needed to request an out payment. By default, this is 30 USD, but may vary on certain accounts with specialized deals or on accounts containing flagged content.

he Apple Artist ID is automatically assigned to each artist that has uploaded to the iTunes Store and Apple Music.

For Artists who already have content on iTunes or Apple Music, they can enter their Apple IDs on Too Lost. This will prevent content from being delivered to the wrong artist page.

Once the works of an artist are available, the artist ID can be obtained via Apple’s artist page.

To obtain the artist ID follow the following steps:

1) Search any album or artist on iTunes

2) Click on artist’s name to visit their artist page

3) The ID appears after the letters “id” on the url (example: 369838987)

The format of an Apple Artist Page URL is:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/[ ARTIST NAME ]/id[ ARTIST ID ]

NOTE: Make sure that the URL is the artist page, not the album

We pride ourselves on delivering your content fast and efficiently. We delivery your music few day it is approved (which can be as fast as 48 hours!)

However, different stores have different content ingestion models and processes of content moderation. Meaning, some stores are faster than others.

We recommend creating your releases with a release date at least 7 days ahead of the day you distribute the release to ensure stores report your song live and playable at the same time.

For best results, give your release a date 1-3 weeks in the future. This gives you enough time to pitch your song on Spotify for Artists for editorial curation, and properly promote the release across all the DSPs.

Major store live time averages:

Amazon Music: 3-7 business days after delivery

Spotify: 24-48 hours after delivery

Apple Music & iTunes: 24-27 hours after delivery

Tidal: 1-3 business days after delivery

Pandora: 3-7 days after delivery

Deezer: 3-5 business days after delivery

YouTube Music: 3-7 days after delivery

YouTube Content ID: 2-5 days after delivery *

(Members: for more delivery times and store info, click here)

* YouTube Content ID claims start after 2-5 days after delivery, but work on both an automated & manual schedule maintained by YouTube’s content moderation team. Some videos may take longer to claim.

If a member distributes a release and wants it to be taken down, they can issue a content removal from all stores, or specific stores, by requesting a takedown. Remember, if you

need to make edits or update release details, you can do so without issuing a takedown.

HOW CAN I ISSUE A TAKEDOWN REQUEST?

To complete the takedown of a release, please follow these steps:

Go to the release in your Catalog. Go to tab “6. Distribution”. If you want to take down the release from all channels: Select “Takedown from all channels”. If you want to take down the release from one (or more) channels: Search for the specific channel in the list and select the option “Takedown” that is shown next to its name. Although infrequent, some Takedowns may be subject to processing fees. If your takedown requires a processing fee to be paid, you will need to pay that before your takedown request can be processed.

WARNING: The releases must maintain the original information (cover image, audios, codes, artists, etc.) until the takedown is complete. Otherwise, the takedown could be delayed.

This process can take from 2 to 10 business days (every store has their own policies and takedown methods). If after 2 weeks the content is still published in stores, please contact us.

Payout reports are made available around the 25th day of every month. You can check your balance in your ‘Sales’ tab on the distribution dashboard.

Users must initiate a payout request from their dashboard.

Within 2-3 days of initiating the request, users will receive a payment via Paypal from HolaTune

Before requesting a payout, please remember:

There is a $50 minimum payout Check your Paypal address in your account settings. Any changes need to be made latest 24 hours before payout request.

New users may not see balance, or only see unconfirmed sales for their first 2 months on the platform. All digital stores report sales at least 30 days behind schedule. Meaning, new users can request payouts 2 months after their first release was distributed.

We encourage consistent releases of music to ensure consistent payouts. We will send a confirmation notice to your dashboard once your payout has been sent. Please only contact us regarding missing payouts if 7 days pass and you have not received a confirmation notice.

If you receive a confirmation notice, and still haven’t received your payout, please refer to the PayPal account listed in the confirmation notice and contact us immediately.

If you have had a fraud notice, piracy or copyright issue on your account during the relevant payout month, your payout may be subject to a hold. We will notify your account email if this is the case.

QC TIMING IS A TERM FOR VALIDATION, NOT APPROVAL.

The term Validation is used for all the content that has been already reviewed from the QC team. In order to start the process, a distribution order has to be made from the tenant or end-user.

The process of validation can can take a maximum of 72h (working days). In the event that there are exceptional cases at the content level for which the period of review by the QC team may take longer than the agreed period, the tenant will be duly informed in advance.

**This QC timing is not applied for Bulk Upload releases.

The act of Validation can concur in one of the following 2 actions, depending on the status of the content reviewed:

Approval. It means that the content fulfills Quality Control standards, therefore it is approved and automatically distributed to the Digital Music Services requested by the end-user. Ticket to the tenant. When a content is not Approved, a ticket explaining the reason why it is not eligible to be approved is created, so the give the client the information and fix the issue.

Since the creation of the ticket, the client has a period of 30 days to fix the content and communicate with QC team. Otherwise, after 30 days the content will be rejected and the Score will decrease.

The standards for the QC team to approve a release are detailed in the Content Style Guide.

Once the release is Approved, it will enter our distribution pipeline and delivered according to the DMS timing. Our QCT is only for validation before the distribution.

From the moment a content is distributed by the end-user, the Quality Control (QC) will be carried out. If the content meets all the stipulated requirements, which appear on our Styles Guide, it will be approved by our QC team and then delivered to the selected channels. More information about the QC Timing here.

End-users as well Tenant Admins can always check the status of the distribution of a release by looking at the “History” tab of the release.

Once the content has been completely delivered to the channel(s), the timing for the publication will depend on each channel: it can take from 2 to 15 working days. For this reason, we recommend making the distribution as early as possible, at least 15 days before the release date, to make sure the content will be published on the desired date.

Please note that the 2 to 15 working days period is extended during festive and holiday periods, meaning it can take more days for publication. We will notify all its clients about any specific deadline communicated by the channels.

You can add links, bios, social media pages and other information for active artists on your account. To edit artist information, follow these steps:

Go to your Catalog in the Distribution Portal Click “Artists” in your Catalog sub-menu Search and click on the artist you want to edit Add information, and remember to save.

Adding your YouTube User and Apple Artist ID are super important to ensure there are no delivery issues for artists who already have content on YouTube Music or Apple Music/iTunes.

We will soon introduce new features that can utilize this information, so make sure to keep it updated and fill it out!

Unconfirmed royalties are earnings that have yet to be made payable to us by the stores, but are still pending confirmation from our Finance department.

You can access a summarized report of your unconfirmed sales by using the “Download unconfirmed sales report” option in the Sales > Reports section.

Since these sales are yet to be confirmed, they are considered “Estimated Sales” and as a result the amounts may vary slightly due to withholding taxes or exchange rates.

Sales that are still pending confirmation are not included in the user balances, so you cannot request out-payment for these earnings UNTIL these earnings are confirmed.

Our objective in showing you these unconfirmed royalties is to fulfill our promise of full transparency. However, please remember these are only the estimates given to us from the stores, and your confirmed earnings may vary slightly.

Why are royalties pending confirmation?

The main reason why royalties are pending confirmation is that music services issue their sales reports weeks or months in advance of issuing the payment for that corresponding period.

In order to provide this information as soon as possible, our Royalties Department uploads the sales report as early as we receive them, so the users can check the evolution of earnings in the Sales > Analytics tab.

However, it is only after we have receive payment for that report that we can confirm these sales and pay them. That is when these royalties become payable.

After sales are confirmed, the end user balances will be updated with their corresponding store/site earnings.

In some occasions, royalties can be pending confirmation due to extraordinary circumstances, such as:

The music service is being unusually late on payments. As soon as we are confirmed of an excessive delay on payment by the service or are aware of this special circumstance, we will communicate it to all members so they can plan for this inconvenience in advance.

A technical issue has hampered the normal confirmation schedule and there is a backlog on confirmation. In that event, we will prepare and communicate to each member a payment plan so they can have an estimation as to when sales will be confirmed and payable.

Music services apply small adjustments in recent reports that apply to previous periods. These adjustments can appear as unconfirmed sales since the service usually applies them without any notification. Periodically we review these adjustments to include them in our confirmation period so everyone is up to date. Please bear in mind that music services are constantly reviewing their reporting processes and are constantly improving them.

Stores consider a release to be an “EP, when it has:

4-6 tracks with a total running time of 30-minutes or less.

OR

1 to 3 tracks, with one track at least 10-minutes long, and a total running time of 30-minutes or less.

With Spotify for Artists, you can see who’s listening to your music and take control of your artist profile. As part of the Spotify for Artists community, you’ll also be the first to know when we create new tools and features for artists. Once you distribute your first release, just click ‘Claim Your Profile’ on https://artists.spotify.com/

If you are releasing music on a new artist page (meaning you do NOT currently have music on Spotify) please note: If you want to take advantage of Spotify for Artists “Editorial Playlist Submission Tool” or you are working with a PR/Promotional company for your first release, you may need access to your Spotify for Artists account prior to your first release. You will need to contact your Label Partner on your dashboard and request your Spotify URI (the unique catalog identifier). To best prepare for this, please upload your first song/album 3-4 weeks prior to the assigned official release date.

If you already have music on Spotify from an old distribution company or label, and want your new HolaTune’s release to merge on the correct page, please note: We do our best to pair your new content with your current catalog, however to avoid mistakes and metadata errors on Spotify, please alert your Label Partner on your dashboard prior to your first release going live (we recommend 1-2 weeks before your first release goes live) with your current URL to your Artist page on Spotify. This will ensure this release and future releases deliver to the correct page.

If your content delivers to the wrong page, please contact our support at: support@holatune.com (with the subject “Spotify Delivery Error”)

HolaTune can help you release cover songs, but songs containing samples cannot be approved or may require an additional information request.

What’s the difference between sampling and cover songs?

Cover Song

A cover song is a song that you performed & recorded yourself, but the music was written by someone else. This is totally fine.

Sampling

Sampling is when you use the actual recording of another artist’s performance. For example, if you use the recording of Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman” as your back track, it’s usually not legal.

Unless you have written permission from the original artist, the label, or owner of the copyright, you cannot release a song with a sample.

Clearance is possible, but is rare for smaller artists and can be an expensive process.

Songs with unauthorized samples can be subject to legal action – so to avoid legal issues with your releases, make sure you only distribute songs you own the rights to or have clearances for.

If you are unclear if your song contains a sample, feel free to email our support.

For songs that are in Public Domain, and NOT eligible for distribution.

QC stands for “Quality Control” – this is our team of content curators working hard to ensure your content doesn’t contain any unauthorized samples or sounds and meets each store’s individual content guidelines.

Please allow 1-5 days for your first few releases for QC to handle your release. After a few releases, the process goes faster for new users.

That being said, plan your release properly. Give your release 7 days to process.

To clarify, we always recommend uploading your release to HolaTune one week before the actual release date.

This is to ensure the song gets on all stores & platforms on the same day, at the same time.

You can do a catalog transfer from another distributor like Distrokid, Tunecore or Ditto, and maintain your current stream counts.

If you want all your releases under one roof, we recommend to follow the next steps:

Create the releases in HolaTune: Use the same titles, artist names, genre, etc.

IMPORTANT: Use same ISRC codes. This is to make sure you do not lose the plays. We recommend you do not use the same UPC code or Reference code. We can issue you a new UPC and Reference code for free, and it prevents potential auditing issues with the digital stores.

Distribute the releases. Wait until the releases appear online in the stores and streaming sites. There should be an overlap time, where both the HolaTune version and old distributor’s version are up together. After 1-2 days of overlap, use sites like Spotify, where you can check plays on the platform, to confirm plays are transferred and/or tracks are linked.

If after one week you don’t see the new release with the correct plays contact support or US

Once the plays appear correctly transferred, you must issue a takedown on your old distributor. If they don’t display an option for takedown, contact their support team and explain you are in the midst of a catalog transfer and need the content removed from the stores.

If you have additional questions or concerns, use our support desk or contact your Label Partner.

Yes, most do.

Generally, stores like iTunes, Amazon and others keep around 20% of a sale. We get the remainder of a sale (this is called the wholesale price) and share 80% of this amount to you. This is the case for every label and every distributor licensing music to the digital stores.

Remember, it still means you are receiving 80% of your royalties. The stores need to make money as well!

For stores that offer full-track streaming, there is a proportionate share worked out differently for every store. Therefore, monthly payouts for music streaming sales can vary each month. You can check all the information shared by channels on your Sales Reports.

Members can read more about each store’s payout process by clicking here.

A Cover Song or a Cover Version is a remake or new performance recording by someone other than the original artist or composer of a commercially released record.

Example 1: Skinny Love by Birdy is a cover of Skinny Love by Bon Iver

Example 2: Seven Nation Army by Zella Day is a cover of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes

You can release cover songs with HolaTune.

Yes, but you have to carefully flag it as explicit when creating your Release.

Many of the digital platforms have parental control processes available that will prevent explicit content from being displayed to children who visit their digital store.

Explicit tracks should be correctly labeled when a Release is being created & distributed. Failure to correctly identify explicit content may result in your Release being removed from the stores after it has been delivered.

If you want lyrics to be included in your release delivery, you can do so from the track information section.

We deliver lyrics to all of our partners who accept them.

You can always add lyrics later by visiting “Tracks” in your “Catalog” section in the Distribution Portal. Just remember, any edits or changes to tracks or releases need to be updated in order for changes to reflect in the stores.

By default, we disable Beatport for new user channels, unless advised otherwise. You can enable it, if you plan on utilizing Beatport as a channel for distribution.

Keep in mind, Beatport has special conditions for releases.

A UPC (Universal Product Code) or EAN (International Article Number) is a unique code used to identify a Release.

Note: Releases get UPC codes, and individual tracks get ISRC codes.

YouTube Content ID is a digital fingerprinting system developed by Google which is used to easily identify and manage copyrighted content on YouTube.

YouTube are compared against audio and video files registered with Content ID by content owners, looking for any matches.

Once you activate the Content ID channel for your music or video, YouTube creates a reference as an invisible fingerprint that will protect your content distributed and will detect all the third party content using your catalogue.

We work with Content ID to collect revenue from videos utilizing your music or video content

Content ID is a piece of intellectual property that has been created to protect your content on YouTube. Therefore, if you don’t have the exclusive rights to distribute and you activate this option, it can generate YouTube property conflicts in the short or long term, causing you potential trouble with your channel and/or potential legal issues. YouTube Content ID can be only activated if you have the 100% exclusive rights to the release, including the composition. If you leased an instrumental or beat (on sites like BeatStars.com or traktrain.com) you are most likely not eligible for Content ID on that track. For video content id you have exclusive rights for your visual content.

also you can add your own channel to ‘whitelist’ , which means that videos uploaded will not be matched through Content ID for this channel. you can use this function when you want avoid claims on your own channel.

Due to the User Generated Content nature of the Youtube service and HolaTune effort together with the DSP to fight copyright infringements and abusive usage, the distribution to Content ID will be subject to a label approval process from November 19th 2021.

As the Label Approval vary depending on each DSP requirements, here below we detail how the Label Approval Process works.

Content eligible for Content ID

HolaTune does NOT control your masters.

You maintain 100% of your music’s rights.

Along with owning your masters, you also keep up to 100% of all royalties generated!

No.

In order to reflect any changes in audio, metadata or pricing, the release needs to be updated.

There is no way to sell a song for free in the online stores such as iTunes. If you see a song available for free download in iTunes, this is because the iTunes editorial team made that decision.

If you want to give your music away to certain, specific people you know — such as radio stations, DJs, and friends — an easy way to do this is to just email them your MP3s (or FLAC files, etc.). You can also put your MP3s on a file hosting service and give whoever you want a link. For example, if you use Dropbox, just right-click on the file and select “Share…”

If you would like to purchase your own songs on iTunes to give as gifts to other people, open iTunes on your Mac or PC. Then click the sub-menu to the right of the price and select “gift this song.” There are more instructions here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2736

Encoding is the conversion of one format into another digital file format, often referred as ‘output format’.

All the music you upload is being transcoded to FLAC files in the highest possible bitrate- without any quality loss.

Your audio files must meet the format specifications below to go live in the digital stores.

The audio files format required is:

WAV stereo 44.1 kHz (sample rate), 16 bit (bith depth), 1411 kbps (sample rate). We also accept 24 and 32 bit files.

If you have an MP3, M4A or other audio file, and have no way of exporting the song as a WAV file, you can use different software, or an online converter to convert your current file to WAV.

This site is a good example of free online converters: https://www.onlineconverter.com/audio-to-wav

Yes! HolaTune uses bank-level SSL encryption (SHA-256 with RSA, TLS 1.2) to transmit credit card information. That credit card information is then securely sent directly from your browser, to our credit card processor — your credit card numbers never actually touch our servers or our database.

Your entire session is SSL encrypted (“https”).

This all helps us prevent unauthorized access to your account and personal information. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy

ISRC, the International Standard Recording Code, is the internationally recognized identification tool for sound and music video recordings.

Note: Releases get UPC codes, and individual tracks get ISRC codes.

Sometimes, when a new release is distributed to Spotify it is assigned to an incorrect Spotify Artist Profile. Spotify may also create a new artist profile instead, while a previous one already exists.

This issue tends to happen with Artist Profiles with identical or similar names, as Spotify creates and organizes them automatically.

In case one of your releases has experienced this problem, we can contact Spotify in order to request a fix.

To do so, we need you to send us the following information:

URI of the right artist profile (if the artist still doesn’t have a profile, please tell us to create a new one for the correct artist). URI of the wrong artist profile – make sure to label it as “wrong” profile. URI of all the albums / EPs / singles you want to move to the right profile

We need this data to request the modifications to Spotify properly.

Please check before sending the data to avoid any further mistakes.

The Spotify URI is similar to the release link (URL), and it’s the official format requested by the platform to proceed with any modifications.

You can get it by following these step. As of now, you cannot do this on the mobile app:

1. Open the Spotify computer app and go to the song or album or artist that needs changes. 2. Right click on it and select “Share”. 3. Position the cursor on “Share” and then click “Copy Spotify URI”. The code will be copied to your clipboard.

HolaTune is free to join and open worldwide.

We have three plans: Free, Gold and Platinum.

You can check our plans anytime. https://www.holatune.com/plans-pricing