What Is Distribution? | Wendy Day Interviews Sonny Findley on Music Distribution

Hi guys, Wendy Day here. Thanks for tuning in, so happy to have you here. I have an interview today. This is Sonny Findlay, and Sonny is, um, first of all, Sonny's amazing. He is my tech geek partner in crime. Yay! This is the guy that I call when I'm having all sorts of tech issues, um, and he's like me, he likes all the latest gadgets. So we gadget talk a lot. Um, Sonny started as a rapper. I met him as a rapper. He still is a rapper, um, but he now works for a distribution company. So I thought it would be really cool to bring him onto my channel and ask him a shit ton of questions about distribution so that you guys can, um, gain some knowledge from him. Sonny, hey!

What's happening?

I'm good. You doing okay?

Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. Just hanging out here in Nashville. It's either 80 degrees or 20 below on any given day, but, uh, right, living through it. Just trying to make it in America.

You're like in, um, you're like in, in, in, in country central.

Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's not all country though. I mean, there's a lot of other— there's, you know, the popping, like digital stuff is popping off here a lot too.

Good, good. Okay, good, good.

Got it. We got a pretty big, uh, urban, you know, hip-hop crowd, you know, scene here too as well.

You have a really decent scene too.

But from the outside looking in, everybody thinks that Nashville is just country music, but that's not entirely true. Good. Okay, good.

But it's, it's, it's Music City, so we're doing all kind of here, busting down those stereotypes. I love it.

Absolutely.

So how did you get into the music industry?

Well, I mean, just like you said, I started as a rapper and, well, I was actually started in radio. I was a radio DJ on an urban radio station, WYOK, in Mobile, Alabama in the mid-'90s. And then I started in production radio and started, you know, working with commercials and doing production for radio. And then I moved into doing producing music. And started my own recording studios and I started producing people just in Alabama, just from the neighborhood, and figured out a way to get those albums distributed. Back then it was physical, so, you know, I was kind of one of the first independent people in southern Alabama to be able to reach retail on a mass scale. So we were in Blockbuster Music and Tower Records and we were all over the country. So I started doing my own music, of course, and moving that along with the other stuff that I was producing. And I ended up going to work for Selecto Hits Distribution in Memphis for a little while. And kind of, you know, since I'd been putting out my own records, I kind of had got my feet wet with how that worked. And so I started making a living doing that. I came to Atlanta and worked with you for a little while and learned a whole bunch of shit. So thank you for that. I went to work for, for a few labels, you know, doing A&R as well as doing the tech stuff. So I started, I kind of found my way through technology by being able to build applications that help labels and just distributors run and, you know, do business to business with their partners and kind of automate things. And so now I'm back working for a company called OneRPM, which is one of the top leading competitors in distribution. I'm an advocate for independents, so I feel back at home working for an independent distributor and not so much for those fucking labels. But so I mean, it's been, it's been, it's been a long journey. And I learn every day, you know, I don't claim to know everything. But I can certainly tell you what not to do.

Right?

Because I've done things you're not supposed to do and done them wrong.

Absolutely. You know, I always say that, that I bumped my head so that you guys don't have to. You know, and, and sometimes you learn more by learning what not to do than what to do. So, um, we keep it very real on my channel and we discuss it all.

I mean, I, I, uh, I, I, I've helped a lot of other people become successful more than myself, you know, um, and, you know, me being an artist and of course, you know, in being a musician and a producer, um, that was my passion of getting in this industry in the first place, you know, and I've done a lot of cool things. You know, I was the, I was an engineer for a long time and I ended up becoming the in-house engineer for Three 6 Mafia for about a year in Memphis. And, you know, that was kind of cool. And I started helping people do merch and sell their merch online and then back to using the technology that I was doing to be able to facilitate that. And, and I've never really been able to get my career off the ground as an artist because I'm so tied up helping other people. But I've become just as passionate about doing that. And, you know, and it's been, it's been real fun.

Yeah, there's something very rewarding about helping other people. And, you know, it's funny you should mention that because I built my career on helping people like that is my career.

You know, it's like, fuck what I want to do.

And there's, there's just, you know, there, there's not a lot of money in altruism, but there is a lot of, um, happiness and good feelings in altruism.

Absolutely.

You know? Yes. So you can hear me okay?

Oh, absolutely.

Cool. I just had a little thing pop up on the screen that I have no idea what it is. It has your name and it's got a microphone and it's got a counter telling us how long we've been talking, but, um, I'm just gonna ignore it and, and, and keep going. I didn't press anything, so I don't know where it came from, but, uh, if you don't mind, I'm just gonna ignore it. If for some reason you can't help me, you can't hear me, let me know. So, um, Sonny, what is distribution? What is distribution?

Well, um, you know, but back in the day, distribution was, you know, getting your records to all these record stores, you know, brick and mortar Places like Warehouse and Tower, and now that still exists, but now it's, you know, having someone to aggregate your music to the digital platforms. Of course, now that we're in the digital age, music is consumed differently. You know, it was MP3s in places like iTunes and Google Play and Amazon for consuming downloads. And then also it's getting your music onto streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Claro, you know, everything. So, and, you know, outside of like SoundCloud and YouTube, artists can't really upload to these services directly. You have to have an aggregator or, you know, a distributor to get you, to get your music delivered to these places.

Are there a lot of distributors?

Yeah, there's a pretty good amount of them. And I will say, you know, I mean, I think there's a difference between real distribution and aggregation, okay? You know, a lot of these distributors, or so-called distributors, are middlemen. So, you know, artists need to kind of look out for that because a lot of these distributors are not really— they don't have any direct relationships with the DSPs, which are the digital service platforms. So, you know, they're using some other company. And they may be using a gateway like The Orchard or Sony or something like that to be able to get it through, which is kind of a problem because I think one of the great things that's necessary about distribution is having people who have direct relationships so you can get things accomplished that you need, especially if there's a problem. And then a lot of these distributors are percentage-based. So if you're in a, you know, you might say, well, I've got an 85/15 split with the distributor. Well, he's in an 85/15 split with the real distributor. So you're in a 70/30 and you don't even know it.

Right, right.

So, you know, of course I have decided to work with people that have direct relationships, you know, and have built my own relationships and became certified like on YouTube to be able to work directly on these platforms. So, you know, I can talk directly to Spotify, directly to Apple Music, directly with YouTube, you know, and directly with Tidal and everything to where I don't have to worry about the middleman or sending an email and they got to email somebody else and then you got to wait. Play that waiting game. Right. I can't stand waiting on people.

Exactly. Um, I was always taught that with distribution or distributor, what they were responsible to do was to get your music to the people and then collect your money for you and give you, you know, the, the whatever the split is, to give you the remainder. Are there, are there other things that distributors today are responsible to do, or is it still pretty much the same?

It's still pretty much the same, you know. So I mean, with distribution, you're not typically giving up any rights to any of your music or any ownership, you know. You're just giving a license to a distributor. Yes, golf clap. You're not giving up any rights. So you're just giving a license to this company to go distribute your goods in the marketplace, and then they collect all the money and then they subtract their percentage from it. That you agreed upon in the beginning, and then they give you the remainder. So, but, you know, distributors are— some of them are, you know, as people are trying to navigate without the machine anymore, you know, some of these distributors, like me, of course, are trying to provide opportunities for artists, you know, outside of just delivering your music to the platforms and then our relationship being over. Got it. Because, you know, it's— whether it's helping you get onto a Spotify playlist or getting your new release featured on the homepage of iTunes and just things that you can do to, you know, somewhat provide label services in a sense. And distributors aren't replacing, you know, PR and marketing, you know, the artists still need to have a plan. But if you can coordinate that plan with your distributor, then you might have a bigger impact on your release.

Right. How far ahead does somebody need to bring you in before they release their music?

Oh, you mean like a lead time? Yeah. Um, I mean, I like 6 weeks, you know, at least 4. Um, wow. And you know what, me, yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's, and I used to think that it was just rappers because I came from that business, but it's not. It's everybody waits to the last minute, you know. I mean, people call me all the time and say, hey, uh, you know, I got this release and I need it up in an hour or today. And, and of course, since I have direct deal with iTunes, I can put their music up on that platform in an hour, but that doesn't do anything to really help them. You know, it's just there and nobody knows about it until somebody tells somebody.

Exactly.

You know, so for, for us to be able to, to go out and promote, and you know, so basically, in a nutshell, what would happen was if, if I was working and providing additional label services and marketing to an artist, um, I would have the single, like a single or an EP, for at least 4 weeks, and then I would contact Spotify and Apple Music and iTunes and Google and Amazon and tell them all, hey, look, this is what we're working and here's why you should probably get behind it. And, you know, try to give them some marketing points of, and, and and basically just pitching it, um, on your— on the artist's behalf, right? So, and there's no guarantees of that because, you know, distributors don't control what these platforms do. We don't work for them, you know, um, and we don't control anything. Uh, we can guarantee that it'll get on the platform, but, uh, if, if they show you any love, you know, that's just, uh— but the more lead time you have, the, the more your chances are greater for, for getting some, some extra perks.

And, and the bigger your buzz, because if you've got a— if you've got a decent movement on the streets, it's going to translate into streams and sales and etc.

Absolutely.

Cool. So, um, when, when somebody is, um, looking for a distribution deal— and I want to be really clear here because a distribution deal is different than a label deal. Even though you guys hear us talking about services and, you know, getting up on Spotify and Pandora and all of the other streaming services, as well as the download sales sites, as a label or an independent artist, your own label, you have to have a budget to do the marketing and promotion to drive the fans to those places to want to download the music or stream your music. So, um, Sonny is, is not a record label that you sign to. He's a distributor, and he's able to get your music into the marketplace. You've got to bring the fans.

Um, yeah, absolutely.

So Sonny, when, when you're, when you're signing artists, um, to the distribution company, what do you look for for? Like, what does somebody need to have in place to be qualified to get a distribution deal?

Alright, well, you know, we go back to when I say I think that just general aggregation of music and real distribution deals are to be separated because, you know, there's a big DIY market now. You know, you can go to places and upload your music and pay a fee, you know, whether it's $50 or something to upload a song or an album.

Would that be like a TuneCore or DistroKid?

Right, right. And then you keep 100% of, you know, your royalties that's made from that. But then again, not all deals with distributors and the platforms are created equal either. So, um, you know, like, I go out and try to work great deals with Spotify and Apple Music and them to where I'm constantly fighting, or we are as a company, for them to pay us more. Um, if somebody's giving you 100% of their royalties, I don't really think they care how much Spotify is paying per play, right? Um, so Right, so I mean, it's just like, you know, 80% of a dollar is better than 100% of 40 cents, you know. So that's just something to think about. But as far as, you know, the criteria, you know, I try to work directly with artists that are serious, and a lot of them I work with have came off of major labels. They're tired of getting screwed. They, you know, they want— they're tired of being in 50/50 deals, and they want maintain ownership, and, and I try to help them be able to do that and regain their independence. But then I work with a lot of new artists too, and, and I try to work with people— it doesn't matter if you're brand new, I just try to work with people that really have a solid plan, and hopefully they have a budget. You know, if you call me and I've never heard of you and you've never released anything, but you've hired this whole PR firm and you've spent marketing dollars, whether it's you know, for Spotify playlisting, or you've hired somebody to help you work Pandora, or you've got street teams and vans running around, you know, all that stuff, then it really incentivizes me to, you know, want to get behind it. Nobody wants to get behind a lazy artist. So if you're that lazy artist, or if you just don't have a budget or you're too new, then I'm probably going to defer you to a DIY service, you know, which, which I provide as well. You know, I have ability for you to go on our 1rpm.com website and sign up and pay a fee, or not pay anything and just take a percent split. But, um, but, and we still, you know, we'll get it on the platforms, but you're not going to get the customer service and, you know, the direct line to somebody like me that's going to that you can call when you misspelled something on iTunes or when you want to know, you know, how to possibly maneuver Spotify and, and, you know, all the marketing things that come along with it.

Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, good. And now I'm gonna ask you that same question but from the other side because you're also an artist. What should an artist look for in a distributor?

Well, um, I mean, you want somebody that's going to get you on, get you on the platforms that you need, you know, first and foremost. And then somebody that's going to pay you on time, you know. And I think a good deal of these distributors are now have, you know, online systems to where you log in and they're in, and people are getting paid kind of on demand. For a long, long time as an artist, you know, I was using a distributor or distributors that would send me a statement once a year, and if I was lucky, there was a check attached to it, but I didn't know where it came from. You know, I didn't know what it was for. So as an artist, I like to be able to see itemized list every month of exactly, you know, every YouTube play, for my YouTube deal, and how much each one of those plays played. And same thing for Spotify and Apple Music and iTunes and everything else. Everything's itemized, and I can get paid on time. I also like to look for a distributor, somebody that, that is not a middleman, that has direct deals. So if there's a problem with something— and problems happen all the time, you know— I, as an artist, released an album last year, and there was a problem with one of the songs because a label cease and desisted me for it because they granted me clearance on a feature and then turned around and revoked that clearance. So with most distributors, especially the DIY guys, you would have to pull the whole record down, fix it, and re-upload it and deliver it all back to the services. But with having a direct relationship with a distributor that could provide metadata updates, I was able to just update that one song on the platforms without having to take it down. And that happened in about 3 hours from the time I requested it. So across every platform in the world. You know, there's gonna be problems sometimes and you're gonna need somebody to help or you're gonna— there's something I'm not gonna understand. Um, as an artist. So, uh, having somebody that will return your phone calls and emails is pretty, is pretty important.

It is, it is. And some of those other sites, they, they, they just don't— like, you can't call them no matter what. And when you email them, sometimes it takes 48 hours to 36 hours for them to respond. And if you've got a release date, that's just, you know, eating into 2 days of your time. Towards your release date and pushed it back.

Right. I mean, and that's, that's, you know, honestly, one of the, the big, uh, things that drawed me to, to going to work at 1RPM was because, you know, I was— I had moved my music over there first, and all these things were just taking place, or something would happen, and I could, I could call Jared over there at 2 o'clock in the morning and say, hey man, all this shit is wrong, you know, or something. You know, they, they put— they created 5 different profiles on Spotify 5 for me instead of 1. And then he's like, oh no, no problem, I can fix it, I can fix it, you know. And I wake up in the morning, everything would be done. And, you know, and of course I got curious of how exactly are you doing this? Yeah, how are you doing this? How do you have this much power over these services? And, uh, of course, um, I found out that it was the technology that they have in place that was, you know, written for them. Um, Matt Olum is the guy who wrote all the technology for 1RPM, and he wrote CDNow, which was the first download service pretty much ever. And it's still around today, and it's called Amazon MP3 because he sold it to Amazon. So, I mean, you know, these guys had a real cutting edge and knowledge of how to communicate with these platforms and to be able to fix things. And so That, that's very important to me, is to be able to, you know, I— me being a tech guy, I like the fact that you can just click a button and shit happens, right?

Me too. And I especially like the fact that somebody else can click a button and make shit happen, right?

Absolutely.

Meaning you.

Yeah, that's awesome. I'm that guy.

Oh, exactly. I have one more question for you. I know I'm being— I'm, I'm— you're being very generous with your time. Thank you so much. Um, the dashboard— I want to talk a little bit about the dashboard at a distributor and how an artist can best utilize that information to help their career. So like, what's on a dashboard when you go into your account at the distributor? And you can see like, of course, how much they paid you and when and all that stuff. Um, but what else can you see on a dashboard? Like, can I see where my music is playing, like where the spins are coming from or what playlists I'm on, like what happens behind the scenes?

That's a really good question. I can't speak for all the other guys. I have found that most people's dashboards pretty much suck. If they're giving you any data, it's usually stale or it's complicated to read. One of my main objectives in my position now is to fix a lot of that stuff. So for the dashboard, you know, of course there's analytical data that you can see on a daily basis from Google Play and Apple and all the streaming services and downloads to show you how many sales and kind of like charts and pie charts and geographical data is important to be able to see where where most of your fans are either streaming your music or buying it.

Very important.

So, you know, you know, maybe that could help you determine where you want to go do a show, right? Or where you might need to promote harder, right? Um, because those sales in that particular area might be less than you expected, um, or greater 50 miles away. So, uh, looking at that kind of data, um, analytical data is very, very important. And you know me, I'm a data geek. You know, I love I love to look at data and analyze it. And, you know, um, so, and then there's, there's also outside of the analytical data, um, I've been creating some, um, some, some tools. Um, one of them is directly with Spotify now to determine what playlist a song lives in. So, you know, you'd be able to log into your dashboard and, and if your song lived in playlist, it would list all of those and how many followers that playlist has and who it's owned by. Whether it's a Spotify curated playlist or owned by independent curator. We've been doing these— I just did this new integration with, with these links that are all-in-one links. So when you put your music in there for sales, it's just like a short link, and when you click it, it has all the music services on one link. And as your music makes its way onto more and more platforms, that same link updates itself, so you don't have to tell people, hey, go find it on iTunes, or give them a direct link to there, or Google Play. You can just give them this one link, and when they click on it, all the services worldwide that it's available on has a logo and a button to get there. So I'm making that available to all artists that I distribute for, whether on the DIY side or through our direct partnerships. You are the king of geeks. Yeah, so I mean, I mean, you know, it's cool because as an artist I get to think about all the stuff that I want. Yeah, that's necessary, right?

Right. And then, and then, right.

And then working on in the offices at Distribution, I get to see, you know, how, how we do it and, and, and kind of what's frustrating or what could be done better. And so I can sit down and start hacking away at a computer and trying to figure out how to automate some of this stuff. But dashboards are very important to be able to see data and to have widgets and utilities and things in promo marketing material. Anything that I can feed into a dashboard to help the artist, I'm gonna try to do it.

Right. Cool. Okay, yay, this was so helpful.

Yeah, well, I, um, you know, one thing that, uh, lastly I'd like to mention that, um, is, you know, we were talking about YouTube stuff, is, um, I feel like a lot of artists are kind of getting, um, taken advantage of on the YouTube platform. Um, with YouTube, of course, there's a there's several different claims. So you have the audio claim, okay, so which takes care of the rights to own that audio or claim it on your behalf. And then there's the video claim for if you shot the music video, then you can claim that. You can get money from that too. And then there's publishing, and then there's ad revenue. So there's basically 4 pieces of things that you can monetize on YouTube, all with one piece of content. You know, and what's happening is a lot of these companies are— a lot of artists are uploading stuff to YouTube and then other people are uploading it to their channel and they're going and claiming it and they're making a bunch of money off of it. And these artists aren't getting paid because they don't have anybody to go fight for them on YouTube to go make sure that people aren't claiming this stuff. So When you're looking for something in a distributor, you want to look at people who have, that also offer YouTube MCNs, which is a multi-channel network. And so they can handle your rights management for you. I know, you know, some, most distributors, and especially these DIY guys, they will use Content ID, which is a technology on the YouTube platform that is like Shazam, and it crawls around and tries to find things that belong to you. But what happens is, is if I go in and dispute that myself and say that I own it, then that distributor is not gonna fight for you. They're just gonna let me have that claim 9 times out of 10. So you want somebody that's, you know, gonna go in and fight for you and make sure that people aren't taking advantage of you. YouTube is generating a lot of money for a lot of artists and other content creators right now. It's one of the— because of the fact that it's not just a streaming royalty, you know, you got, like I said, you got these 4 elements 4 components to a piece of content to get paid, you know. And so if you upload a music video, you can upload a trailer first to promote your video, monetize and get 4 components from that. Then you upload the full video, and then you upload the behind the scenes to it, and you just got paid 3 times, 4 different ways, you know, for the same. So, right. And, you know, and those are, those are things that I try to educate people on. As well, um, of how to maximize the amount of money that you can make on these platforms.

Got it. And what's the standard split for an MCM? Do you know?

Well, with a lot of guys, it's like 50/50. Um, of course, you know, I'm offering deals much lower than that, right? Um, our deals are typically 70/30.

Okay.

Just for YouTube. Um, you know, that's separate than the other services. But the reason is, is because we have a whole team of people in 3 countries, you know, that work in our YouTube operations department that are constantly going around and optimizing YouTube. And when you're in a network, another benefit is, is, um, if I have 10 other channels in the network that are like yours, then I can cross-promote between those channels, you know. So it creates opportunities for you to get your views and, you know, get discovered a little better.

If I have my video up on YouTube let's say I'm a rapper, which is a scary thought, um, but let's say I have my video up on YouTube and you like it, so you post my video on your channel. Do I still get paid?

Yes, yes. So, uh, yes. So I mean, and we make sure of that. So what it is is you'll have the, um, you won't get all the components of it because it's on— it lives on somebody else's channel.

Right.

But if you own, you know, if you own the rights to the music, of course it was your song, then you can claim the audio portion of it. Got it. And if there was a music video and they uploaded that whole thing, then you can monetize that. And I mean, I can give you even a further example. If, say, you're doing a, you know, a YouTube thing and you're interviewing me outside on the street right now. And a car rides by and plays a song, you know, say it's your song and it plays for 10 seconds, then we can go in and claim that 10 seconds of the video for the audio portion of it because that belongs to you, right? Yeah, so you don't have to claim whole videos, you can do it in sections, you know. And so you kind of have to stay on top of that stuff and have a multi-channel network that That's what they do.

Is there software that can actually crawl YouTube to find like 10-second bursts of my song?

Well, I mean, YouTube has that built in. It's called Content ID. Okay. And that's their Shazam-like technology that goes and listens to things, and it's able to look at video too. It's very, very smart. It doesn't catch everything. Because of the fact that you have to— we have to upload references to that database to where it knows songs to listen to and who they— and we set policies for those. So, and everybody's policies might be a little different. You might say, hey Sonny, you know, if my song is uploaded to somebody else's channel, I just want to block it in all countries. You know, I don't think that's smart. Um, you know, because fan-uploaded content can make you money. Um, so, right. So, and some of these people have a lot of subscribers, so, you know, you might upload a video and get 1,000 views, and your buddy upload it and get a million, right?

You know, so, and, and you might get 50 new fans or 100 new fans. Like, the promotional opportunity, like, to me exceeds the money.

Yeah, absolutely. But I don't I don't think that artists should give up the, the money, right, to be able to allow these people to— because I call them content vultures, you know. They're just constantly going around looking for something that's hot and then they upload. I mean, you notice like when a mixtape comes out on somebody hot, you know, uh, that you'll go to YouTube and a thousand channels have uploaded that whole mixtape because everybody's fighting and they're trying to claim it. Especially on mixtape content, because artists are usually just putting it on that PIF or Loud Mixtapes or something like that, and they're not actually monetizing it through a distributor. I recommend that as long as— because a lot of these artists are doing mixtapes, but they're producing them or they're buying their production— as long as you're not, you know, rapping over industry beats and things like that, and you're just labeling it a mixtape, I also suggest that you put those through a distributor to be able to make it to the other platforms instead of just, um, live mixtapes and that piff.

Right.

Um, because for one, if we do it and people start uploading that stuff to YouTube, then we can make you money for that.

Right, right. Do you guys have a special program that, um, crawls YouTube in addition to Content ID?

We're working on a piece of technology for the publishing end.

Cool.

To, you know, because YouTube is, you know, these services have to pay publishing too. But it's hard to collect it because of the fact that the technology that's currently in place really can't determine who wrote the song.

Right, right.

Um, so to pay the writers, we're working on some technology, um, that— and from what I understand, it's, it's kind of almost complete. It's not one of my direct projects that I'm working on personally.

That's really surprising.

Um, but yeah, but I understand that, that it's, it's pretty much complete, and I think it's in testing right now, but it's, it's going to go out and try to to find out, you know, I guess it would do the same thing Content ID is, which is test it against the library of known stuff that we know that we have metadata on, that we know who wrote it or who the writers are. And so then, and handling compositions. So, but other than that, there's really nothing. I mean, Content ID, and then, you know, I mean, that stuff fails, so you gotta have a whole team of people that are going around looking for stuff that people have uploaded for you and making sure— because I mean, it's not— even if Content ID finds it, it might only monetize just one piece of it to where you as an artist might own several pieces of that. Like I said, the music video might be yours too.

Right.

So we would go in and actually take those claims and claim those videos for you as well.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. This was really helpful.

Well, no problem. I enjoy educating, right?

I'm so appreciative. Okay guys, thanks for tuning in. This was Sonny Findlay from 1RPM Distribution and Wendy Day here, and thank you for tuning in.