TikTok and DistroKid enter deal set to further boost indie artists

The deal, made public on 31 November, will see music distributed by DistroKid available across ByteDance’s video-editing app CapCut and TikTok’s Commercial Music Library. Additionally, for the first time, music from artists distributed by DistroKid will be available on TikTok Music, the platform’s new premium-only social music streaming service, which is currently live in Indonesia and Brazil, and in beta in Australia, Mexico and Singapore.

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has over 1.1 billion monthly active users (MAUs). On its part, DistroKid, the world’s largest distributor of independent music, estimates that it distributes 30 to 40% of all the world’s music.

DistroKid and TikTok have been working together since 2019 when DistroKid signed on as one of the first distributors to help independent artists get their music uploaded to TikTok. Since then, music from DistroKid artists has also been available in TikTok’s Commercial Music Library (CML), which offers a catalogue of artist-driven music for brands to use in their advertising on TikTok, without having to seek traditional approvals. 

“Independent music from around the world fuels creativity on TikTok in such a powerful way,” TikTok’s global head of label licensing and partnerships, Tracy Gardner, said. “Having DistroKid’s vast catalogue of music available on TikTok Music, CapCut and in the Commercial Music Library is a great opportunity for our community, a huge asset to brands, and is an unparalleled means of music discovery for these indie artists around the world.”

“TikTok is one of the most powerful music discovery platforms in the world,” DistroKid founder and CEO Philip Kaplan added. “The expansion of this partnership to include CapCut and the Commercial Music Library makes it super easy for millions of musicians to make their music available in even more places, while TikTok’s new music streaming service provides further reach as it becomes available in more countries around the world.”

In July, TikTok secured a partnership with Africa-facing music streaming and download company Boomplay to explore cross-promotion of trending content on both platforms via mutual playlists and content discovery.