DistroKid Launches Publishing Service With Kobalt for Independent Artists

Music distributor DistroKid has launched DistroKid Publishing, a new service run in partnership with the publishing company Kobalt. Billboard reported the launch on 11 November 2026.

Publishing is the side of music that covers the songs themselves: the lyrics and melodies, rather than the recording. Money earned from it, called royalties, is paid when those songs are streamed, performed or licensed for use elsewhere. DistroKid is best known for putting artists' recordings on streaming services. With this launch, it moves for the first time into publishing.

Artists qualify if they have at least one release with DistroKid and have earned more than $50 in the last 12 months. Signing up costs $75, paid upfront. The service keeps 20% of royalties and pays 80% to the user. There is no long-term commitment, so an artist is not locked in for years.

Some songs are excluded. Covers, which are new versions of someone else's song, do not qualify. Neither do mash-ups, which combine parts of existing tracks, or remixes. Fully AI-generated tracks are also ruled out.

For Kobalt, the partnership is its first move into what the industry calls the long tail. That term refers to the large number of songwriters and small catalogues that earn modest sums, as opposed to the biggest names. Kobalt launched its own publishing platform, Kosign, in 2025.

DistroKid is led by its president, Phil Bauer. The company's new offering is aimed at the many independent creators who have never had a publishing deal.

What matters most to a songwriter weighing this is the arithmetic. A $75 fee and a 20% cut are the figures to set against what a traditional publisher would take. Those terms are the ones to compare before signing up, and they apply only to songs that meet the eligibility rules above.