CD Baby Reviews

Sneaky & far from being a best friend of independent musicians. Hidden in the agreement, which was awfully short, the fact that 30% will be taken from artists' YouTube income.

They touted that CD Baby does not own a copyright of your music, but they managed to claim their perpetual ownership rights before even you know it.

You only will discover this, when you will register your music with the Sound Exchange for extra $39 and will start a dispute. (Good luck if a copyright registration absent).

By the way, the registration that they charge musicians for is FREE! So what does their fancy Pro-publishing do? You can buy an internet page to promote your song and get royalties from internet radio.

THEY DO REGISTER YOUR NAME with the MLC, Sound Exchange, but to claim your music! Please check what the real publisher does before signing-in with this Tech. In my case they broke the original agreement by refusing to downgrade to a Standard release after a year +, as it was originally presented.

Now they repeatedly have been tagging my youtube videos with their baseless copyright infringement tags REGARDLESS that they do not have rights to my compositions and lost them in a dispute on Sound Exchange.

Unfortunately the system that protects independent musicians is not well oiled yet, and CD Baby bets on it.

Hypocritical ads, a poison for independent musicians.

CD baby the company has sold for millions of dollars twice within 10 or so years. I think last time it sold for nearly $200 mill. I believe they are using all of the stolen royalties to value the company's earnings higher without payouts.

My album sold thru CD baby's various platform for over 15yrs without any paid out. I recently purchased my album from Amazon via CD baby for $19, ebay for $8.99, Spotify $7.95, and the list continues.

I am currently interviewing attorneys to look into this matter. I feel there is enough claims for a class action lawsuit once we unify our voices. It will be an expensive uphill battle but so worth the fight.

If you feel like "Enough is not Enough"

My contact email address is [email protected]

Not only are they impossible to contact for help, they actually LIE about things when they ever contact you. They post payments that don't exist, they hold your money much longer than they say...the list of exploitative practices goes on and on...

I've been having serious problems with CD Baby since I submitted an album and a single MONTHS ago for Pro Distro. They took my money, but a week or so later I started getting emails stating that more info was needed and to click on the link provided and provide the missing info. The link only goes to an ERROR page that says CD Baby techs have been informed and are working it.

I have tried everything. And I get no response from CD Baby for the numerous emails I have sent requesting assistance except a generic email that says "Help is on the way". I have filed a complaint with the BBB. Next step is a lawyer.

They took my money, put my music out everywhere, are collecting royalties, but passing nothing on to me, because of their problem with their stupid website. Next published songs will go to another distro service.

This company is a scam they take a percent of your earnings. Next the company throws you under the bus by giving money to the IRS. I don't make lots of money like A list artist.

Cdbaby does not pay for cd sales. Once vendor pays, it inserts a credit into your account so no payout is ever given. Alliance is selling cds and paying cdbaby. Cdbaby credits itself so it does not pay artist. Been catching them at this for years. They create stories about it but none of it adds up.

CD Baby does give some control over publishing and releasing music. Their Metadata management is average to intermediate. The website has a number of bugs which keep popping up in new versions. On top of this, their financial and performance dashboards are somewhat limited. They also do not have a mobile application.

I would go for Sony Music or Universal Music mobile application. Sony Music has a somewhat better mobile experience, and are also a better label than Universal Music. CD Baby also has a deal with EMI, which they keep under wraps. So all in all, they are on the one hand A&R and on the other hand do wish users to gain more control on the music industry.

I sold my music with CD Baby for many years. Suddenly, without any warning, the links to buy my music at CD Baby were redirected here: https://store.cdbaby.com/ saying this:

"Where's the CD Baby Store?

CD Baby retired our music store in March of 2020 in order to place our focus entirely on the tools and services that are most meaningful to musicians today and tomorrow."

Does their statement above mean that they no longer find it 'meaningful' to sell digital music tracks? ... that it's all right to 'kick to curb' the musicians that helped CD Baby become successful in the first place? (This scenario reminds me of what YouTube has been doing in the past few years)

Thanks a lot CD Baby!

and recently, I'm receiving emails from CD Baby weekly trying to suck me and others back into their web, probably because everyone is learning to not have anything to do with them.

Buyer Beware!

Complete scam. Cdbaby took (stole) my money over a year ago for publishing administration. They never actually set it up or provided the service. They have not responded to multiple emails nor to a bbb complaint. Basically they stole my money and did not even attempt to provide the service. Complete crooks do not fall for their con.

Many, many issues. I have been using their services for more than 8 years, and every single time there are issues with the releases. Featured artists randomly don't get tagged, if they get tagged, the song does not appear on their page, if you write them to correct it ASAP because you spent $1000 on studio works, photo shooting, promotion, marketing plan, and you had been preparing for the release for 2 months before it would be out, they say "it takes up to 30 days to fix it, sorry for the inconveniences", and then they close the chat without saying goodbye.

You can not customize the capitalization of the title, they "inspect" your song for extremely long time before they would send it to distribution, they are not flexible when something is wrong on their side, etc etc etc.

I know there are not too many good options for indie artists out there, but this is unacceptable, makes me think that they do not care too much about you once you paid the fee. Why haven't I changed yet? Good question. Still waiting for something better. As soon as I find it, I would migrate our whole discography there for sure.

CD Baby is a total scam. Just want to get this out there. They market their service as a turnkey publishing

Pre-ordered Ninja Sex Party's Under the Covers: Volume 2; the cd and packaging are both in great condition, but they sent me the regular edition instead of the pre-order edition and poster. A bit irked about that, but I'm happy to own the disc.

Cdbaby keot pushing the delivery date back, we were to the point where we were ready to sue. We aren't the first to have this issue.

Overall, I would only order from them if I couldn't get a physical copy anywhere else.

CD Baby made a third party claim on a song I legally own the copyright to and uploaded to YouTube. Upon asking them to remove it they instead stated that they collect ad revenue that the song makes and sends me the money. In reality I have never had any association with these people and as such they have no idea how to even send me money. THEY ARE LIARS. They are taking independent artists' music without permission and trying to make money off of it. My next step is to contact my attorney.

staff is helpful, but overall experience was ok .I would only recommend them if you have the patience.

I was happy when i first found them, i thought they was great... But then after i published my album they started to list & categorize my music under the wrong genres that i never even specified.

When i contacted the staff at customer service about it "they" well some said they could not fix it, others did later on when i contacted again about it, some kind of lies going on among staff.

One day, after two years later of being an artist with them i decided to delete my album. And guess what? Around one month later they are still selling my album on "tradebit", that's kind fraudulent in a sense that they state in their terms and conditions that "you" have 100% rights over your music. I heared the same thing from another artist before it happened to me, i guess i should of listened. Anyway I could sit here rant & say some curses at cdbaby but i am not even going to waste my energy at them. My advice is to stay away from them and here are some better distributors i found> "loudr.fm", "venzodigital.com"(this one is itunes only but still good), "routenote.com", and for CDs (Createspace) > "www.createspace.com/Products/CD/",