Your Distributor Can Be Sold Without Asking You. Here's The Clause.

On the 3rd of November, Warner Music Group bought an independent distributor: Zebralution, in Berlin. It was founded in 2004 as, in its own words, "Europe's first digital distributor for independent labels."

The labels on it didn't sign anything new. They didn't have to. Because the agreement you accept when you upload to a distributor usually says the company can hand that agreement to someone else, without asking you. Your releases, your royalties, your account: they go with the contract.

I read two of these agreements this week. DistroKid's says it. TuneCore's says it. Here's the clause, and what to do about it.

What's actually confirmed

The seller was Bookwire, a digital publishing company in Frankfurt, which announced the sale on the 3rd of November. Music Business Worldwide reported it the same day. The price wasn't disclosed. Neither was the number of labels.

Zebralution's co-CEO, Sascha Lazimbat, told Music Business Worldwide it "will very much be business as usual" for its label partners. Warner says it's doing this "without asking them to give up their independence."

And this isn't one deal. In April, Warner bought Revelator, which builds distribution and royalty tools for independents. IMPALA, which represents Europe's independent music companies, called that trend "bad news for artists, fans, and Europe's diversity." And in July, the private equity firm CVC agreed to take a majority stake in DistroKid.

The company holding your catalogue today may not be the company holding it next year.

The clause

DistroKid's distribution agreement, clause 10(e): "You may not assign, transfer or delegate any of your rights or obligations hereunder without our prior written consent." Then the next line: "We may assign, delegate, pledge, encumber, sublicense and otherwise transfer, this Agreement."

You can't move it without them. They can move it without you.

TuneCore's terms, section 27.7, say it more bluntly. The terms "may be transferred or assigned by Distributor to an affiliate of Distributor or to any third party, without restrictions." Any third party. Without restrictions.

And the agreement is the thing that carries everything else:

• the licence to put your recordings in stores;
• the account your royalties build up in;
• the reports that tell you where your listeners are.

Whoever holds the contract holds all of that.

The honest part

An assignment clause is normal. It's in almost every service you've ever signed up to, and it's how a business gets sold at all.

Nothing I've read says Zebralution's labels are getting new terms. "Business as usual" is what they've said, and I've got nothing that says otherwise. A new owner doesn't automatically mean worse.

What nobody can tell you is what happens in two years. A new owner can change the prices, the terms, or which artists it wants to keep. And DistroKid's agreement also says your "continued use of the Site or Service" will be "deemed your acceptance" of changed terms. So staying counts as agreeing.

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. It's what the words say.

What to actually do

1. Open your distributor's agreement and search it for one word: "assign". Read that paragraph. It takes two minutes, and then you know.
2. Find out who actually owns your distributor. Not the logo, the owner. TuneCore's own terms name Believe. DistroKid's new majority owner is CVC. Write it down, with the date.
3. Keep your own copy of everything that contract carries: your masters, your ISRCs and release dates, and every royalty statement, downloaded, not just viewed. If the company changes hands, the dashboard can change with it. A file on your own drive doesn't.

The one thing a distributor never holds

Your fans. Streaming services don't give you your listeners' email addresses. The list you build yourself is the one thing in this whole chain that's only ever yours.

That's how I built droplr. On the Free plan you can see every fan address it collects for you. Not a count — the addresses. Exporting the file starts on the A$12 Artist plan. And if you close your account, the whole list downloads, on any plan.

And yes, droplr's terms have an assignment clause too. They say they can be transferred to whoever takes over the droplr.fm business, and that you'll be told if that happens. I run it on my own. I'd rather you read that from me.

Contracts get handed on. The list is the part you keep.