DistroKid, handling 40% of new music, abstains from IFPI anti-fraud standards as CD Baby signs on

DistroKid, distributing ‘roughly 40%’ of all new music, hasn’t yet signed IFPI’s new anti-fraud standards… unlike CD Baby.

September 14, 2026 By Tim Ingham

IFPI has published a set of anti-fraud standards that it wants every music distributor worldwide to adopt: The Streaming Integrity Initiative (SII).

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A total of 24 companies and trade bodies have already signed up, including Universal Music Group , Sony Music Group , Warner Music Group , HYBE, and Merlin .

Other signees include Absolute Label Services , CmdShft, Ditto Music , GoDigital, IDOL , IMPALA , InnerCat Music Group, Redeye, RouteNote, Secretly Distribution , Symphonic , and Too Lost .

One name that’s conspicuous by its absence?

DistroKid has not yet signed up, despite its claim to distribute “roughly 40%” of “all new music in the world”  for over 4 million artists.

Others yet to sign the IFPI decree (so far) include TuneCore , Believe , and   UnitedMasters .

Interestingly, one DIY distributor that has signed up to the SII is CD Baby – the DistroKid rival which became part of Universal Music Group following UMG’s acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings earlier this year.

The Streaming Integrity Initiative ( SII ), announced on Monday (September 14), sets out five baseline practices that IFPI says distributors should adopt to counter fraud at the point of upload.

According to the IFPI, these five principles are:

- Verify rights ownership and customer identities through robust rights verification and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes; - Vet content using effective tools and processes to identify infringement, fraudulent activity and AI-related risks; - Act by detecting, investigating and mitigating suspected fraud, including acting against repeat offenders; - Share intelligence, where legally permissible, to help prevent bad actors from moving across services and platforms; and - Measure and continuously strengthen anti-fraud systems to address evolving threats.

Participation is voluntary, and the published SII document sets out no audit requirement, no reporting obligation, and no penalty for a signatory that does not follow it.

Ten of the 24 names on the list are owned by the three major music companies:

- UMG accounts for four of them: Universal Music Group itself, Virgin Music Group , FUGA [217 articles]" href=https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/downtown-music-holdings/fuga/ FUGA , and CD Baby . - Sony Music Group accounts for three: SMG itself, plus The Orchard [359 articles]" href=https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/sony/sony-music-group/sony-music-entertainment/the-orchard/ The Orchard , and AWAL [362 articles]" href=https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/companies/sony/sony-music-group/sony-music-entertainment/awal/ AWAL . - Warner Music Group accounts for a further three: itself, ADA , and Revelator , the B2B platform WMG bought this year and is folding into ADA.

“Streaming fraud misleads fans and deprives legitimate artists and songwriters of income that should rightfully flow to them,” said Victoria Oakley , Chief Executive Officer of IFPI . “This is theft, plain and simple.

“We welcome the leadership shown by the first distributors to publicly support the Streaming Integrity Initiative , and hope this leads to direct, effective and coordinated action to protect artists, songwriters and fans from streaming fraud.”

> “We welcome the leadership shown by the first distributors to publicly support the Streaming Integrity Initiative , and hope this leads to direct, effective and coordinated action to protect artists, songwriters and fans from streaming fraud.” Victoria Oakley, IFPI

Sarah McNabb , Director of Content Integrity at Merlin , said: “Tackling illegitimate activity effectively requires every part of the industry to move together. These commitments reflect Merlin’s own position and align closely with what Merlin already requires of its members.

“It’s encouraging to see so many of our members already putting their names to this announcement, and we’re glad to stand alongside IFPI in this initiative as it continues to grow.”

Helen Smith , Executive Chair of IMPALA , said: “IMPALA’s Digital Music Plan adopted earlier this year set out our recommendations for growing the market and identified industry collaboration on a new scale as a top priority.

“With recommendations for DSPs and labels as well as distributors, working together on integrity, promoting human artistry and other key aspects across the whole chain is vital.”

Like DistroKid and TuneCore , CD Baby carries music from self-releasing artists who pay to upload it.

CD Baby was servicing more than 2 million self-releasing creators, with a catalog of over 20 million tracks, as of November 2023 .

According to a DistroKid press release dated July 2026, the company “distributes roughly 40% of all new music in the world” for over 4 million artists, having processed “more than 45 million songs” to date.

That press release announced DistroKid’s majority acquisition by CVC Capital Partners for a price believed to be in the region of $2 billion – a deal brokered on DistroKid’s behalf by Goldman Sachs and Raine Group.

The new IFPI initiative comes against a backdrop of increasing distribution of AI-made music to DSPs.

Deezer said in July that it was taking in close to 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks a day in June, passing half of all new uploads to its platform for the first time .

Of 1,551 tracks submitted to SIQA’s AI music charts in Q1 this year , 90.4% were made using Suno and 75.8% were distributed by DistroKid .

More recently, Suno has announced new limits on the number of downloads its subscribers can pull from the platform.

“As our platform grows, limiting downloads will make it harder for bad actors to mass-export music,”  Suno  wrote.

DistroKid was a founding member of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance, the cross-industry anti-fraud body launched in 2023 – and remains a member today. Music Business Worldwide

_Originally reported by [Music Business Worldwide](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/distrokid-new-anti-fraud-standards-unlike-cd-baby/)._