YouTube Music Distribution & Art Track Delivery

YouTube Music is YouTube's dedicated music streaming service, available alongside platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music in more than 100 countries.

When you select YouTube Music in DistroVibe, your music is delivered to the YouTube Music app and appears on standard YouTube as automatically generated Art Tracks.

How Art Tracks Work

An Art Track is an automatically generated YouTube video that pairs your release artwork with your master audio recording.

• Shared Catalog: YouTube Music and YouTube share the same music catalog. Distributing to YouTube Music delivers both your streaming release and its matching Art Track.

• Label Attribution ("Provided to YouTube by..."): Art Track descriptions include a "Provided to YouTube by..." line naming the label or distributor attached to the release. On the Label and Label Pro plans you can set a custom DDEX party name in your label settings, which is used to identify your label in deliveries.

• Monetization & Royalties: Plays on YouTube Music and views of your Art Tracks generate royalties, which are added to your DistroVibe wallet. With an active plan you keep 100% of your royalties; royalties processed while you have no active plan carry a 20% distribution commission.

YouTube Music vs. YouTube Content ID

These two services do different jobs on YouTube:

• YouTube Music (Streaming & Art Tracks): A streaming store. It delivers your releases for playback in the YouTube Music app and publishes Art Tracks to YouTube Topic channels.

• YouTube Content ID (Copyright Fingerprinting): An automated copyright system. It scans videos uploaded by other users across YouTube to detect, claim, and monetize uses of your sound recordings. Content ID requires 100% exclusive rights and is not available for AI-assisted releases.

• YouTube Shorts: Which songs appear in the Shorts sound picker is decided by YouTube. Releases delivered to YouTube Music with Content ID enabled are the usual route, but availability is not guaranteed.

Claiming Your YouTube Music Presence: Official Artist Channels (OAC)

You cannot "claim" an auto-generated Topic channel with a login. Instead, it can be merged with your own channel into a single Official Artist Channel (OAC):

1. Keep an active YouTube channel that represents your artist identity.

2. Distribute your releases to YouTube Music via DistroVibe so that your Topic channel is generated.

3. In your DistroVibe Dashboard, go to Support, open a new ticket, and choose YouTube Official Artist Channel Requests. Provide your Topic channel URL and your main YouTube channel URL.

4. Our team forwards the request to YouTube. If YouTube approves it, your channel receives the music note badge (🎵) and your subscribers, Art Tracks, and official videos are brought together in one place. The final decision is YouTube's.

Incorrect Channel Mapping & Separation

If your Art Track was assigned to another artist's Topic channel, or another artist's song appears on yours, submit a remapping ticket:

1. Go to your DistroVibe Dashboard and open Support.

2. Open a new ticket and choose YouTube Remapping.

3. Select the affected release.

4. Provide the Art Track link, the correct channel, and the URL of the incorrect channel.

5. Our team sends the correction request to YouTube. Processing times depend on YouTube.