Ditto Music Reviews

Pretty much what a lot of people have increasingly been saying online.

Positives:

Quick setup when it involves sending them money.

Negatives:

1) Poor communication, lost emails and lots of claims of "issues"

2) Deliberate stalling

3) Mistreating the paying customer once the customer has paid

4) Withholding royalties from remixes of tracks from labels who have ceased to exist

5) Downright sneaky

6) the list is endless.

To be honest, I am surprised at how they have lasted this long. The fact that the reviews are so extreme is revealing.

found out about this website by searching for reviews of digital music distributors online.

I manage a record label based in Japan and have worked with Dittomusic for 2 years.

However, I have decided to cease the deal with Dittmusic due to a number of reasons, most of them surprisingly mentioned on this website by other Dittomusic clients.

I strongly believe these issues are worth mentioning so that people become aware of what might happen.

My aim is to provide an objective review on Dittomusic’s services, both positive and negative.

Let’s start with the positives:

1) Customer service in terms of attitude and promptness is quite good and helpful BEFORE signing up. They will answer your questions and occasionally make changes you cannot figure out how (This was with their previous system, I don’t know about their current system).

2) Their distribution network is vast and streaming services are updated regularly. However, there is an extra sign-up fee if you want your music available on Beatport.

3) They offer a bunch of extra services, although I haven’t tried many of them.

Now, for the negatives:

1) Once I signed-up and paid, customer service started to get worse. Replies to emails took up to 2 weeks. Replies would usually come after expressing disappointment with Dittomusic’s service and “threat” to cease the deal with them.

2) 2 releases were lost and uploaded up to 6 weeks after the scheduled date. After the first time this happened, Dittomusic suggested I send them a confirmation email when I upload music. However, the same situation happened again.

3) Stalling and illegally attempting to withholding payouts – This is by far the worst. This was done in two ways.

First, Dittomusic charges a fee to keep releases available on stores every year, which is perfectly fine as each company is free to choose their business model. However, Dittomusic refused payouts claiming that I hadn’t paid the renewal fee even though I didn’t want to keep the release available on stores for an extra year. It took me 3 weeks to solve this situation due to delayed response from customer service.

Second, we had an issue with unlicensed remixes. One remix was from a famous band that doesn’t exist anymore. At the time, I unknowingly thought copyright of bands that don’t exist anymore would lose copyright. I later found out that they don’t. Copyright for bands that don’t exist anymore last for 70 years in the US. All the other remixes were from personal friends of mine so I assumed there would be no need to do so. When I sent Dittomusic emails from the artists’ personal email accounts to prove they had given permission to do the remixes, Dittomusic claimed that was not enough. I understand that there are legal ramifications regarding remixes so I asked for payouts from original tracks. However, they deliberately ignored that and kept on sending me links where I could obtain licenses for the remixes. I asked them how much I was owed from original tracks and they simply told me to figure it out myself. I eventually did and sent them an invoice. This situation also took around 3 weeks to solve.

The next time I asked for a payout, Dittomusic did the same thing again. I had to reiterate that I had no intention in getting payout from remixes but they still redirected me to links where I could obtain paid licenses deliberately ignoring the real issue. Only after several email exchanges where I told them that what they were doing was illegal, telling them I would expose this fraud and cease the deal did they payout what I was legitimately owed. Dittomusic tried to withhold the total amount of what I was owed using the excuse that I didn’t have appropriate licenses for remixes as an excuse to do so – twice. Their attitude towards their client is terrible and downright insulting.

4) Requests to remove releases take too long. It’s been a year and a half since some releases should have been removed and they are still available. I am starting to wonder if the removal of releases work at all.

At the moment, I got paid from all original tracks but they still withhold sales originating from remixes. I tried to solve this issue in a civil way by suggesting Dittomusic transfer all those funds to the legitimate copyright holders. I even sent them who the legitimate copyright holders. Their reply was that I should organize all of it. How can I organise anything when Dittomusic shows no intention of collaborating? I wonder how many labels and artists are aware that Dittomusic is illegally withholding funds that should be transferred to the legitimate copyright holders.

This seems very similar to the situation where many clients complained about Dittomusic not paying mechanical royalties. It reveals their general business attitude.

Dittomusic claims to be professional but I fail to see any of that although their actions and attitude after these situations I have been through as well as other clients.

Dittomusic’s business practice are dishonest and show no intention of collaborating with their clients in a win-win manner. Instead, they try to put all the responsibility on the client. What kind of customer service is that?

If your aim is to make your music available on many stores for exposure, Dittomusic works fine. However, if you are trying to do business with them, be prepared for the worst.

For a initial fee Ditto has distributed all my music on the web. Best thing is I get to keep all the royalties.

5 star rating from me