DistroKid pulls indie songs amid Universal copyright lawsuit
Artists report frozen royalties and copyright strikes with little explanation of what they allegedly infringed
Here's what I can actually confirm: independent musicians say their songs vanished from Spotify and Apple Music after DistroKid started pulling tracks in response to a Universal Music Group lawsuit. Some got copyright strikes and frozen royalty payments with no clear explanation of what they infringed. That headline about a Supreme Court win on songwriters' worldwide rights? I don't have the details to back that up here, so I'm not running with it until the facts catch up. What I do know is worth your attention on its own — if you distribute through DistroKid, this is a pocketbook problem, not a legal footnote.
From the Coral Wire edition of Tue, Oct 20 2026 · Coral Index 57/100 (Mixed signals)