Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Victims Of Tunecore Speak Out

IF TUNECORE IS SO GREAT, EXPLAIN THIS THEN!.....Tunecore is a Scam!

AUTHOR: anonymous - (United States of America)

Victim#1
TuneCore is a scam - they owe me $28,000 in royalties and have not paid one penny. Arrogant enough to reply 'If you want to file a lawsuit.. go ahead' because they know i will have to travel from CA to NY multiple times to appear in court, etc. For more details check the tunecore forums, I am posting the entire discussion there. Just to notify everyone that TuneCore has performed a breach of contract. I am owed $28,000 in royalties - and they have not paid a single cent. It is more than 17 days since the issue was supposed to be 'fixed'. Their response - "If you want to file a lawsuit, go ahead, we cannot stop you" Of course, TuneCore is out to waste my time and money by having to file a lawsuit against them in NY, but I have to do this and spread the message. If anyone is serious about their music, do not do business with TuneCore. If you are an indie artist making $20 a month, they will pay you on time, but the minute you get higher sales (because of marketing, promotion, etc) their system has 'glitches'.
Victime#2
They guy above is exactly right. They are scammers and once they see someone start to do well they will just quit talking to you, or worse yet the CEO himself hung up on me because he was ask to point out things in the disclosure. He froze up because he knew he was wrong so just hung up. I will be spreading the word. I signed up to Tunecore last year and because I'm a newbie in music, totally independent and with very little marketing budget I was naive enough to think that I would be able to increase my unexistent audience via Tunecore.
Wrong. Not a problem because my music isn't necessarily very good either but when I tried to remove my songs and my name from Tunecore after realising that I had made a mistake, they cancelled my account but didn't remove my tracks, in fact, they distributed my tracks to a number of other pay sites. My music is available for free from my website and I think it is presumptuous to think that I should be charging money for tracks that are unreleased, unmastered and full of frequency soups and if I ever thought the opposite when I signed up to Tunecore, then I was totally wrong and take it all back. So I've contacted them again to remove my tracks from their site although this time I'm asking for their head office address as I need to do this in writing. In short: it wasn't good for me either. I am fortunate enough to realise this mistake early in my career...
Victim#3
I signed up to Tunecore last year and because I'm a newbie in music, totally independent and with very little marketing budget I was naive enough to think that I would be able to increase my unexistent audience via Tunecore. Wrong. Not a problem because my music isn't necessarily very good either but when I tried to remove my songs and my name from Tunecore after realising that I had made a mistake, they cancelled my account but didn't remove my tracks, in fact, they distributed my tracks to a number of other pay sites.
My music is available for free from my website and I think it is presumptuous to think that I should be charging money for tracks that are unreleased, unmastered and full of frequency soups and if I ever thought the opposite when I signed up to Tunecore, then I was totally wrong and take it all back. So I've contacted them again to remove my tracks from their site although this time I'm asking for their head office address as I need to do this in writing. In short: it wasn't good for me either. I am fortunate enough to realise this mistake early in my career...
Victim#4 tunecore is a f**king scam they will secretly take money out of your payments, the hidden percentage is what i called it the facts will come out soon.
Victim#5 The Part of the Tunecore Business Model that Jeff, doesn't tell you about. While it is true that Tunecore offers a good service, I read that the FBI is going to start monitoring Tunecores accounting processes. Why? Isn't Tunecore a great service? True on all accounts but why does a musician need to use tunecore to put their music on iTunes anyway.
Tunecore doesn't pay a fee to iTunes...or do they. Tunecore pays a fee to iTunes, and other online stores to keep the littleman out. Therefore they can charge a fee. This seems innocent right. I'ts only a mere 9.00 per single and 35 to 50.00 per album. That's where the 7 million in financing went. After doing the math and subtracting all the paypal transfer fees, I am wondering how Tunecore stays in the black. Aahh! The truth is revealed...Now... This is how they do it..aside from there state of the art automated processes . First you sign up.. they don't care what type of music you put on and they don't even check to see if the said music is copyrighted. They do let you check the box saying you agree that selling music that you don't have permission for is illegal. All goes well and believe it or not in less than 3 weeks all your music is in the stores...Wow!... You then every 5 minutes, check all the online stores to see if you moved in chart position or sales rank.
Then 45 days latter you receive your first 30 dollar royalty check. Wow you are really siked and pumped. Another 45 days goes by and now you receive a 300 dollar royalty check. Wow.. This keeps happening for the next few months till finally you are about to hit the $1000 dollar mark and you do.. You log into your account to initiate the paypal transfer. You type in your email..and wait for the next 24 hours to see your cash...but....2 days go by..6 days go by then 2 weeks go by and no money. You are pissed so you email support and no one answers you. There is no phone number but after calling and the 2 hrs of googleing you find the address of tunecore. You then call the attorney general.
The attorney general, connects you to the better business bureau. You get the number. You call and...Someone answer the phone right away...Wow. You think. They must be busy processing payments. They explain to the rep that you want your money in the kindess tone.. He put you on hold..and then a guy named Tai comes on the phone. He tells you that they aren't going to pay you..because you don't have permission to sell your songs that you wrote.And...if you want your money..you need to produce the licenses for your songs. Now you are confused because you wrote all the songs, and registered them with the copyright office.
You are indeed pissed, but since you live in California and they are in New York, you can't strangle them. You yell you scream, but they just laugh. You hang up. Not knowing what to do. You wrote those songs. How can they do this to you you wonder. You call back and try to remain calm. You tell them there must be some mistake. They laugh again and say if you have a problem than go get a lawyer. You hang up, call and think to yourself, I am going to get me a lawyer. You find who you think is a good lawyer and you are confident until he says that he charges $500 dollars and hour. Saddend you call around to find a lower priced lawyer but the fees keep getting higher and higher. YOu only made a little over $1000 dollars. If you hire a lawyer you will receive no money because of the fees they charge. You call Tunecore again..This time you keep getting tossed around. Finally you are transferred to a fellow named Peter. He seems like a good guy.
You explain the situation to him.. he pulls up your account..He tells you that it is illegal for you to sell unlicensed music. Again you argue that it is your music and it is original. YOu ask for the anme and number of the person who says your are stealing music. He blows you off and says you will need an attorney to get that info. YOu think about the lawyers fees and now in your heart you know that you are fighting a losing battle. You are so pissed by this time that you asked speak to the Boss. You are than transfered to the CFO, Gian...He says he ain't gonna pay..You need a lawyer to get your money. You then in the calmest way tell him that it is yours music. And you tell him that you signed up at Tunecore so you want have to deal with lawyers. You thought they were on your side. He then laughs and says, "Buddy, Music isnt about you..It is all about Money and Lawyers." Almost in tears and barely able to speak you threatened to sue them which is a lie. He then yells "don't call here again." And don't you threaten my staff. And slams the phone in your face. **** This is a True story...And this happens to a lot of Tunecore customers. Tunecore will only steal money from those who cannot afford a lawyer.
They know you can't sue because it is too expensive. A record company won't sue them because of the lawyer fees as well. So who keeps the money. Tunecore!!! I am writing this to warn you about this practice. It doesn't matter if you have licenses or not for your songs. If you samples someone, do a cover of a song, you are really not safe. Tunecore is trying lock down the independent artist sector and steal there money because they don't have lawyers or money for them rather.
Tunecore has done this to thousands...and made millions in this shady practice. It is a good service on the outside. But shady on the inside. The Truth Exposed... If this has happened to you or you feel your royalties are a bit low for your efforts, feel free to email me xxxxx@yahoo.com We independents are only strong together..We can file a class action law suit and at least get a court order to audit there books.

support@tunecore.com  

How to sink someone with email spam? - Digital Point

Monday, May 7, 2018

Don't Use Tunecore

See the source image

Google  or Bing the following search terms:

"Tunecore Sucks"

"Tunecore fraud"

"Tunecore rip-off"

"Tunecore accounting fraud"

"Tunecore scams"

"Tunecore FBI raid"

"Tunecore theft"

"Tunecore not paying royalties"

Don't just take my word for it.  Google or Bing those terms everyday so that Tunecore becomes synonymous with fraud.

How to sink someone with email spam? - Digital Point support@tunecore.com

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Is Tunecore a Scam? Yes It Is!

 A scammed Tunecore customer speaks.

I won't call it a scam, but I have had some questionable experiences while using their service. I am a songwriter and copyright holder of some compositions and their sound recordings which I paid Tunecore to to distribute digitally. I had roughly 300 dollars in sales in iTunes, Amazon MP3 etc...,
and when I tried to make a withdrawal I never received a check. I waited 2 weeks and never got my money. I contacted Tunecore and they told me that my account had been frozen. I asked why ? and was told that a copyright claim had been filed with them by another party.

I promptly sent Tunecore a picture of my physical U.S. Copyright Certificate with filing number and proved to them that I am actually the songwriter and copyright holder... but they didn't listen or seem to respect my copyright. About a month later, the issue had still not been resolved. I then called Tunecore and asked to speak with someone. "They are in a meeting. They will call you back when they get out. What is your number?" is as far as I got. No one called me back or explained anything to me. Also, when I initially tried to make a withdrawal from my account via check, may account was debited the amount of the check, but I never received the check. So in my opinion Tunecore, stole (for lack of a better term) "X" amount of dollars from my account and hasn't paid it back, nor have they sent me the check. "Yes sir, it's on hold sir". By Tunecore doing this, in my opinion they are really saying to me "We don't really respect your copyrights and we're going to keep your money"

It's really not a super huge amount of money so it's not really worth suing for, but it's still MY money and I still want it.

Another scammed Tuncore victim speaks. 

They are definitely a scam! I had thousands of spins and streams they took my money then when I asked them to take down my music and stop collecting my royalties they told me that I was stuck with them for over a year and a half. so when you distribute with tunecore you lose the right of your own music.

You will be stuck with them for 18 months they will keep collecting your royalties and give you a legal document stating that is what you signed when you clicked the yes to distribute your music button on their page. Beware of tune-core. What type of site would not want to give the artist control of their own music and then they give you kibbles and bits and wont give you detailed reports all the reports don't tell you the total it only tells u what they are issuing you. Big issue there. They wont tell you what the total amount they collected is. They will only tell u what they are giving you. There are a lot of people that work for tunecore posting comments here and its not real music artist.

If you google "tunecore scam" you will find real music artists that experienced this type of unethical distribution. Nobody knows that the fine print on their page gives tunecore the right to keep collecting all your royalties even after you requested for them to take your music down. What type of distribution company would want to keep collecting music artist royalties against their will? Then they told me that the artist keeps a 100% of their royalties if that was true then why do they want to keep collecting my money and issuing me 7 bucks out of so many views I got. I did the math and it doesn't add up right. Tunecore is a complete scam.

Yet another Tunecore victim tells the awful truth about Tunecore!

I'll narrate my experience with tunecore, bmi, and Nielsen soundscan in sadness. I had a very terrible experience with tunecore, bmi, and Nielsen soundscan. It started in 2011 I went to the internet to make my music career better because most of the musician go to the internet to promote their music. First I stumbled on tunecore without making proper research on the scam company, so I was excited that this company will help me distribute my music all over the world for people to hear my voice not knowing that they are nothing but thieves and liars. First they will tell you to sign up for free and distribute you music all over the world, then the next thing they do is to tell you to do is sign up for bmi account to help with the royalty collection. Once you have signed up for the bmi account which is not a free sign up they will ask you to link the account together. The moment you link the account together you have lost control of your royalty. They fill the royalty for you and dividing the money made from the royalty into two and also make sure that you don’t get a cent from your money. The next thing they do is to show more stores that you need to sign up for.

Now let's talk about ‘‘BMI’’. Once you notice that you don’t have control over your royalty, you try telling them to unlink your BMI account from your TUNECORE account. BMI will tell you that they can’t unlink the both account because if they do Tunecore will stop to bring artist to their website for sign up. So they simply tell you that they can’t which is another lie. That’s what they did to me. So I wrote to Tunecore demanding that they separate the accounts, Tunecore told me that I have record contract with them and that it cannot be terminated, so they refuse to unlink the account. All of sudden Tunecore has changed from music Distribution Company to a record label. Tunecore and bmi are in this together and Tunecore is the one in charge of the scam game. 

Nielsen soundscan is the company that tracks the sale of music and other media in America. For some time now I have been doing my research to find other company in America apart from Nielsen soundscan that can track my song but I find none. That is why they can lie about the sales data result in American and no one can find out because most news media get their report from them. I registered all the songs I published in the internet with soundscan for tracking but when the time comes for tracking the sales of my songs they tell me that they can’t find my songs. I registered UPC and isrc code of my song with Soundscan. I also uploaded all the songs I published in the internet in mp3 format for encoding so they can also track the airplay of my song. Nielsen soundscan refuses to track the sales data, airplay data and the streaming data of all the songs I published in the internet. Whenever I ask them for sales report they tell me I made no sale, if I ask for streaming and airplay report they tell me that have they can’t find the song I uploaded into the bds account they created for me because they have deleted it on purpose, they also keep asking me to re upload so tracking of the previous ones will be forgotten and be counted as new upload. They also try to scare you away with their price for tracking; they do this because they are in the scam game with Tunecore because if you don’t have proof of the sell of your music how can you fight for your money.


Everybody is talking about how Tunecore dealt with them, but no one is talking about how to deal with Tunecore. My Tunecore account that was linked to bmi account was separated by the help of the BBB Better Business Bureau. So if you happen to be one of the victims of Tunecore, you make your report to RIPOFF, BBB, FBI, e.t.c. Making this report will not make any difference so ask them to delete or close your account. They will ignore you because they did it to me. I believe that once your account is still open they will continue making money from your music. So ask them to close the account or delete the account from their website. If they ignore you then you do a WHOIS search on Tunecore to find out who is hosting their website and their admin e-mail, send a message to admin email requesting that they close your account. Also send an email to the hosting company narrating your ordeal with Tunecore and plead for their assistance in helping to close your account with tunecore. If all the victims of Tunecore will report to the hosting company, I think they might help in their own little way. Go to Google and type “WHOIS TUNECORE” you will see the company that is hosting their website and report the abuse to them and also send email to admin email and request they close your account

Another Tunecore victim exposes their scams.

Tunecore does not report sales. THEY STOLE A LOT OF MONEY FROM ME, I STOPPED USING THEIR SERVICE 3 YEARS AGO BUT THEY CONTINUE TO SALE MY MUSIC, NEVER USE TUNECORE, THEY ARE ALSO BEING INVESTIGATED BY THE FBI FOR ACCOUNTING FRAUD.