CD Baby Publishing Reaches Industry Milestone of 100,000 Songwriters, Expanding to 18 More Countries

Independent distributor and music services company CD Baby has reached an industry milestone of 100,000 songwriters under its Publishing Administration service. Representing over 625,000 songs, CD Baby Publishing is on the verge of a large expansion to most European countries as well as Brazil, Israel, Mexico, and Singapore. This will bring the reach of CD Baby Publishing to 22 countries and numerous more territories. The overall CD Baby platform already serves musicians throughout the world and has paid out over $500 million dollars to artists and songwriters.

Formed in 2013 under the branding CD Baby Pro, CD Baby Publishing allows a CD Baby songwriter to completely and efficiently collect the royalties their songs generate worldwide. CD Baby Publishing has begun to expand its offering by allowing select songwriters to add songs that were not distributed by CD Baby. This new pilot program will more holistically service existing CD Baby clients as well as non-CD Baby songwriters to make sure any song written is being completely monetized around the world.

This spring, CD Baby Publishing will expand its service to accept songwriters from most European countries and their respective territories as well as Brazil, Israel, Mexico and Singapore via direct relationships with each country’s Performing Rights Organization. The publishing expansion centers around the following relationships: Austria (AKM), Belgium (SABAM), Brazil (ABRAMUS only), Czech Republic (OSA), Denmark (KODA), Finland (TEOSTO), France (SACEM), Germany (GEMA), Greece (AEPI), Israel (ACUM), Mexico (SACM), Netherlands (BUMA), Norway (TONO), Portugal (SPA), Singapore (COMPASS), Sweden (STIM), Switzerland (SUISA) and Spain (SGAE). CD Baby Publishing is currently available in Canada (SOCAN), Ireland (IMRO), United Kingdom (PRS) and United States (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC).

CD Baby’s VP of Music Publishing and Rights Management, Jon Bahr, commented: “The rapid growth of CD Baby’s Publishing service is a testament to the huge swath of music creators that lack publishing deals, which results in their valuable royalties going uncollected. Our goal is to make sure all of the money generated from a song makes it to the songwriters. We’ve proven that we can do this at the astounding scale of representing 100,000 songwriters, which is far beyond the size of any single publisher in the world. We are thrilled to expand to Europe, Brazil, Mexico and beyond.”

CD Baby Publishing has uncovered royalties worldwide for its songwriters from key platforms like streaming services, but also more obscure sources like cruise ships, online piano lessons and airplane music. Artist/songwriter and CD Baby Publishing client Craig Cardiff expressed his gratitude to the importance of CD Baby’s service by saying, “Without CD Baby Pro Publishing, I wouldn’t have been able to get any of the mechanical royalties generated from each and every one of my over 45 million streams on Spotify.”

The CD Baby Publishing Administration business sits alongside CD Baby’s Sync Library, which offers over 2 million pre-cleared songs to license and has established partnerships with sync platforms like Music Gateway and Pond5. Recent Sync placements include Aquarius (NBC), Vice Principals (HBO), Lucifer (FOX), Doubt (CBS) and films such as Keeping Up with the Joneses.

Beyond its Publishing Administration offering, which uses technology and services from Downtown Music Publishing-owned Songtrust, CD Baby distributes over 7 million songs to a wide range of digital services around the globe, such as Spotify and Apple Music. CD Baby has long been at the forefront of creating ways artists can release their music, reach their fans, collect their earnings and help create sustainable careers. 

In 2016, CD Baby launched a number of key initiatives, including real time trending for Spotify and Apple Music, integrated Cover Song Licensing within its distribution portal; the acquisition of the Loudr Distribution platform; the acquisition of Show.co artist marketing platform; and the launch of Soundrop Distribution with full cover licensing integrated.

About CD Baby

CD Baby is one of the largest distributors of independent music on the planet, home to almost 650,000 artists and more than 7 million tracks, getting independent music to more than 100 digital services and platforms around the globe and allowing artists to monetize their presence on YouTube. Artists using the CD Baby platform have earned more than $500 million since its founding. Its Publishing Administration service, CD Baby Pro, allows over 100,000 songwriters/artists to collect all of their publishing royalties. CD Baby has become the go-to partner for many icons in the new music industry. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Twenty One Pilots, and Macklemore had their start on CD Baby, while others like Ingrid Michaelson and Gregory Alan Isakov have maintained independent and highly successful careers. Artists like Rooney are among the musicians who’ve dropped the old label system and turned to CD Baby to strike out on their own.