What Happens to Your Music When Your Distributor Gets Sued

What happened

Universal Music Group, one of the world’s three major record labels, filed a lawsuit against DistroKid in September, accusing the distributor of deceptive business practices and copyright infringement.

The lawsuit claims DistroKid had been “flooding platforms with AI-generated ‘slop’ that siphons revenue and listeners from legitimate artists and right holders.”

It also claims DistroKid distributed obviously infringing tracks that speed up, remix, or sample existing music.

In response, DistroKid began removing tracks. Numerous independent artists took to social media to report that their songs were taken down without prior notice or immediate explanation. Multiple individuals confirmed on social media that their 100% human-created, sample-free, non-cover projects had been abruptly pulled.

Real artists caught in the crossfire

Among those affected was Nashville singer-songwriter Josh Sahunta, who discovered that his 2022 album had been removed from streaming services after a friend contacted him to ask why the music was unavailable. Sahunta says he wrote and recorded the album himself and had not requested its removal. The album, one of his most-streamed releases and a source of royalty income, initially appeared grayed out on Spotify and in his DistroKid account before disappearing from Apple Music, YouTube, and other platforms.

DistroKid said it “strongly disputes the allegations underlying UMG’s lawsuit” and is “working to minimize that disruption while protecting artists’ ability to release their music.”

DistroKid has said it is working to limit the impact of the removals, but Sahunta has not publicly reported a resolution to his copyright strike or frozen royalty payments. His recordings remain caught in the fallout from a lawsuit directed at the company responsible for distributing them.

What this means for you

This situation exposes a structural vulnerability that every independent artist using a third-party distributor faces. When a legal dispute erupts between your distributor and a major label, your music can disappear from platforms overnight, with no warning and no clear path to getting it back quickly.

A few things are worth checking now, regardless of which distributor you use:

• Do you have a direct backup of every release, including artwork, audio files, metadata, and your ISRC codes?

• Do you know exactly what your distributor’s terms say about takedowns and what obligations they have to notify you?

• Do you have your streaming profile links, playlist placements, and any editorial contacts saved somewhere independent of your distributor’s dashboard?

The bigger picture

UMG alleged that DistroKid delivered nearly 12 million tracks to one unnamed streaming service in the six months before the suit was filed, over half of all tracks delivered to that service. The volume of AI-generated and infringing content flowing through open-upload platforms has created a legal and operational pressure that is now spilling over onto genuine artists.

Where Musosoup fits in

Musosoup connects artists directly with music blogs, playlist curators, and press contacts, meaning your profile and relationships there sit outside your distributor entirely. That kind of direct infrastructure matters most precisely when the systems underneath your releases become unstable.

What happens next

The situation is still developing. Keep an eye on your distributor’s communications and check your streaming presence across platforms regularly over the coming weeks.