Digital Distribution

Digital distribution refers to the delivery of music through digital platforms.

Digital distribution is now the primary way recorded music reaches listeners, especially for independent artists. Instead of manufacturing physical products and relying on label-backed distribution networks, artists can deliver their music to major digital service providers (DSPs) worldwide within days.

The process starts with the artist or label preparing a release package: high-quality audio files (usually WAV), artwork, and complete metadata (ISRCs, UPC, songwriter and contributor credits). This package is sent to a digital distributor or aggregator (such as melabel), which converts and formats the assets to meet each DSP’s technical and metadata requirements and delivers them via DDEX-compliant feeds. DSPs then ingest the content, process it, and make it available on the scheduled release date.

Revenues from streams and downloads are reported back by each DSP, broken down by territory and platform. The distributor collects these royalties and pays them out to the artist under the terms of their distribution agreement, typically on a monthly basis with a 1–3 month reporting delay.

Digital distribution offers several key benefits: immediate global reach, low upfront costs compared to physical manufacturing, access to real-time performance analytics, and the ability for artists to retain full ownership of their masters. As part of its music business workspace, melabel integrates end-to-end digital distribution with campaign management and analytics, allowing artists and teams to connect release delivery directly to their marketing and data workflows.