CDBaby.com reviews and complaints

Hello,
I have been lucky enough to release records for the last 20 years. I joined CDBABY in 2003 and have been a client until now.
I have had many, many issues with CDBABY since Derek's departure. First, many song titles are sent to their third party partners with titles misspelled. I always double check and employ a copy editor to check the copy as well.
Second, scans of cd cover art for their distribution are low-res scans and in some cases my albums were scanned with the shrink-wrap still on them, then delivered to CDBABY's third party partners which is simply tacky.
Third, for over a year, one of my records sat on download sites serviced by CDBABY having been credited to another band/artist that I had never heard of and had no connection to. It took me 10 months to get CDBABY to correct this and it was only after I was convinced by CDBABY staff that I needed to purchase a new barcode from them (the second for that record from them) and redistribute to their digital partners that the issue was corrected. This meant that our album was no longer available during the redistribution process and cost us an unaccountable amount of sales and income. All the while, CDBABY never took responsibility and put it off on MEDIA-NET, a third party they distribute to. I also asked many times for some accounting records, so that we could be sure none of the albums sold while it was credited to a different artist were paid out to a different artist. We were flatly denied access to that information. These issues are very serious for an independent artist. Misspelled song titles (appearing on some sites while correct spellings appear on others), poorly scanned album art, crediting an artist work to another artist not related and refusing to provide accounting information.
And it seems to me to be a habit of CDBABY's staff to consistently put it off on their third party partners. i.e., iTunes, MEDIA-NET, etc.
Which brings me to another issue. CDBABY's "sync" licensing. First of all this is touted as "Licensing", for film, t.v., advertising, etc. But in reality it amounts to an onslaught of ads being placed on any and all videos of your work you may have uploaded to youtube. It goes no further then that. (While I am sure they have placed enough songs to be able to say they license to film and t.v., the reality is that an independent artist is buried in tacky ads) And of course, when an issue occurs, CDBABY staff gives the friendly reminder that its not them but their third party partner RUMBLE-FISH that caused the issue. Another issue I had with the CDBABY's distribution direct to youtube (where they place a static image of your album art accompanied by songs from the album) was that it was a dead end. There are no links to purchase the album you're listening to. You will find your record on youtube, your art, but zero link to the artist themselves, or links to purchase, even to purchase from youtube red or direct from CDBABY. I found this to be amateurish. And certainly does not serve the independent artist to have their music and album art covered in ads with no where to go to purchase or even find out more about the artist. I contacted CDBABY and of course was told that it was out of their hands as it was their third party partner youtube's issue. (Starting to see a pattern?)
And the final blow for me came while trying to release my newest album.
The album was manufactured by Oasis (a "sister" company of CDBABY's. Both companies are owned by Stephens Capital Partners.)
It passed all art inspections and all technical specifications were met. Resolution, Dpi, pixel depth, r.g.b. vs. c.m.y.k., etc. The record was assigned the UPC code and off we went to distribute. However, here is where it gets really unnerving. I was contacted by CDBABY staff demanding that I change my album art or they would not distribute to their digital partners. When I informed the CDBABY staff member that their own guidelines prevent me from changing the art ("digital cover art MUST match physical product") and would force me, for the second time on a second record to purchase a new UPC code from them, I was told again that unless I changed my album art CDBABY would not deliver it. The distribution was paid in full already and when I asked, "why, if it passed inspection from your sister company and manufacturing partner am I being told this now?" CDBABY's answer was "While they are our sister company, we don't have to adhere to their guidelines for album art". What is the album art is question you might ask? Is it hate speech? Is it pornographic? No! It is simply a hi-res black image. Not unlike Spinal Tap or Prince's "The Black Album". CDBABY demanded that I place the artist name and title on the cover which would compromise the artistic vision we had for this release. When I communicated this I was informed curtly that they would be more then happy to allow me to use the CDBABY Only free distribution. (This seems to be CDBABY's way out while still posing as the "good guys".) I was given the excuse that their digital partners and iTunes specifically would penalize CDBABY and slow CDBABY's other releases if they delivered my record, which I was truly shocked by. To find out that one little independent artist could break the algorithm so easily was amazing to me. (Again, from where I stand, it seems to me that CDBABY makes good use of it being "out of our hands and in the third party's hands" excuses.) I was told that the default image iTunes uses is a solid black box and that is the problem. That iTunes' algorithm would recognize it as not having any art and would place a black box as a sort of default image. I believe this is a lie. As independent artist cannot without an artist aggregator site like CDBABY, distribute direct to iTunes, Spotify, etc, and since there are only four to five artist aggregators that iTunes accepts submissions from, I find it highly unlikely that any album is sent to them without art. Besides that, the algorithm is not smart enough to suss out that the 1's and 0's defining your album art amount to a simple black box. It simply catalogs the 1's and 0's and defines said code as the album art. I asked if the fact that I had been partnered with CDBABY longer then they had been partnered with iTunes meant anything and was told that after 14 years of working with them that they would be happy to see me go, in so many words.
CDBABY's creed is "Run by artist, for artist". Well, its my estimation that they no longer have the right to call themselves artist as long as they tow the company line and take part in censorship of artist titles and artwork while hiding under the thin excuse that it somehow doesn't meet vague guidelines that in CDBABY's staff's own words "change everyday". Yes, they did offer their free CDBABY only sale site. But again, to me that is a way in which they indemnify themselves against criticism puts them into a altruistic corner leaving the artist looking like the ### when an issue arises. The real irony in all of this is, in 2004 we released an album with cover art of a completely nude, handcuffed woman with a shotgun leaning against her. Suggesting everything from domestic abuse, sex trades, etc. This album was promptly distributed and continued to be distributed in recent months to iTunes, Spotify, DEEZER and the like. And these companies promptly made that record available for sale. You can find the album art with "safe search" enabled, meaning any child can view this image from any computer. And even though we pulled this album from distribution recently, the image is still available to view on Spotify and iTunes. And was distributed over a decade ago in spite of CDBABY's art guidelines stating "no pornographic images". (Arguably, it is ART. Arguably, it is pornography).
Its my estimation that this is a sort of scam by CDBABY and their sister companies. To place supposed "errors" on the artist and force them into buying multiple bar codes, purchasing new distribution with each barcode or even having to return to their sister manufacturer to remanufacture the albums all while putting it off on the artist or third party sites. I think a little cursory math shows that with the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of albums CDBABY has distributed in the last decade, that a small percentage of these supposed "errors" amount to quite a pay off for Stephens Capital Partners, CDBABY, Oasis and Disc Makers. Yes, errors happen, and with the sheer volume of records they handle they certainly will happen. However, my personal experience, after more than a decade has been that CDBABY consistently refuses to take responsibility for their errors and does not correct these errors in a timely manner. I find that they tend to mislead, giving erroneous information and generally disdain artist who have called them out on it. We've been treated with disrespect and patronizing tones. And ownership of errors made by CDBABY has been put off on us, the artist, at cost to us with no recourse of action.
We've contacted our local congressman and senators and are contacting the Oregon state Attorney General (where CDBABY is headquartered) about our suspicions regarding CDBABY and their "errors" that cause the artist to have to continue to make unnecessary purchases from CDBABY and their sister companies asking for an inquiry or investigation into CDBABY's practices.
And as for independent distribution we discontinue all albums we have placed with CDBABY and will continue to sell direct from our website.
Truly unfortunate.

I purchased a download of the CD "Outtakes from the Soul" by Brock Davisson from cdbaby.com website on my credit card; and it was not provided by the company.

My name is James E. Matlock and the transaction took place recently...
within the past two weeks.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/brockdavissonandfriends

i put out an album two months ago almost three and i havent received any payment as yet, no sales report for any month and no payment. only one day in June an one in May. no report. slowly frauding!