Distribution and Publishing — What's Actually Happening Behind the Scenes

Recording a track and shooting a music video feels like the finish line. In the modern Indian music business, it's the starting line. Getting that song onto Spotify, JioSaavn, or a Jio caller tune, and getting paid for every use of it, is a completely separate job — and it's one you can't do yourself, because no major platform accepts direct uploads from individual artists. They require a verified distribution partner.

Here's the part most beginner artists miss: every track carries two separate copyrights.

• The sound recording (master rights) — the actual audio file, the specific recorded performance.
• The underlying composition (publishing rights) — the lyrics and melody themselves, independent of any one recording of them.

A basic distributor only ever touches the first one. If your song gets covered on TV, played in a restaurant, or used as a caller tune, none of that composition income reaches you unless it's separately registered and administered. SMSound India distributes your masters and helps route your publishing metadata correctly — the two pieces most Indian artists never connect.

India's Streaming Landscape in 2026: What Changed

A lot of older guides online are quietly out of date. Here's what the market actually looks like now.

Shut down

• Wynk Music — the streaming app closed in December 2024 after Airtel partnered with Apple Music.
• Resso — closed in India on 31 January 2024.
• Hungama Music — closed on 15 April 2025.

Still active

• Spotify — the largest reach and discovery engine in India
• YouTube Music — especially strong for regional-language audiences
• JioSaavn — the largest India-native platform left standing
• Apple Music — paid only, grew after the Wynk migration
• Amazon Music — paid and Prime-bundled
• Gaana — paid-only since 2022, lower volume but stable payouts
• Instagram / Facebook Reels — now a genuine revenue channel, not just promotion
• Caller tunes — Jio, Airtel, Vi, and BSNL

About SMSound India

When you're handing over long-term distribution and publishing rights to a company, it should be a real, legally accountable one — not an anonymous website. SMSound India is a registered Indian private limited company.

Being a registered Indian entity also means artists get a real grievance-redressal process (as required under the IT Act) rather than a support ticket disappearing into the void.

Core Features

Wide platform reach

A single upload routes your release to 250+ platforms — including Spotify, Apple Music, JioSaavn, Gaana, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and Instagram — without you having to manage separate accounts on each one.

Video distribution & VEVO channels

Most Indian distributors only push audio. SMSound India also distributes official music videos, and on the Artist Pro and Label plans, it sets up a dedicated VEVO channel for your artist brand — something most budget distributors simply don't offer.

Caller tune (CRBT) distribution

Full delivery pipeline into Jio Tune, Airtel Hello Tune, Vi Caller Tune, and BSNL Caller Tune — a category most global distributors (DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby) don't touch at all.

Direct INR payouts + TDS handling

No PayPal, no Payoneer, no currency conversion loss. Royalties land via NEFT/RTGS/IMPS directly into your Indian bank account, with TDS deducted per the Income Tax Act, 1961 and Form 16A certificates issued to you.

Support that scales with your plan

WhatsApp and email support (24–48 hour response) on the Starter plan; direct call support with under-1-hour response on the Artist Pro and Label plans.

Plans & Pricing

SMSound India runs an annual subscription model with three tiers — royalty share and features scale with the plan, so what you actually get depends on which tier fits your stage of career.

Fees exclude GST, charged additionally at the prevailing rate. Royalty share and plan features apply for as long as your subscription stays active.

SMSound India vs the Competition

Competitor figures reflect publicly listed pricing and policies as of 2026 and can change — always confirm current terms directly with each provider.

Caller Tunes and the 2026 Calcutta High Court Ruling

Caller tunes (CRBT) remain one of the most resilient income streams for Indian artists, especially in regional music — and it's an area where India-based distributors have a real structural edge over global players who don't offer it at all.

How it works

1. Choose the caller tune option during upload on your dashboard
2. SMSound India creates a 30–45 second cut of your track
3. The cut is submitted to Jio, Airtel, Vi, and BSNL
4. Approval typically takes a few days
5. Subscribers can then set your track as their caller tune, generating ongoing royalties

Why the May 2026 ruling matters to you

In May 2026, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court ruled that telecom operators can't offer caller tunes on a music label license alone — they must also hold an IPRS license and pay royalties directly to the composers and lyricists, separate from the recording royalty. This stems from the Copyright Amendment Act of 2012.

Practically: your recording royalty comes from your distributor. Your composition royalty — if you wrote and composed the song yourself — comes from IPRS, and only if you're registered as a member. Two separate payments, two separate registrations.

AI Music Rules in 2026

In September 2025, Spotify confirmed it had removed more than 75 million tracks classified as spam over the prior 12 months, and rolled out three changes still shaping the market in 2026:

• Impersonation policy: unauthorized AI voice clones of real artists are banned outright.
• Spam filters: targeting mass uploads, duplicate tracks, keyword-stuffed metadata, and stream manipulation.
• DDEX AI disclosure: a standard way to flag where AI was used — vocals, instrumentation, or post-production.

SMSound India's intake process includes human quality-control review rather than an automated blanket rejection, and guides artists through the DDEX disclosure checkboxes when AI tools were used in production — the goal being that your release clears platform scans cleanly instead of risking a surprise takedown.

Step-by-Step: Releasing Your First Track

1. Prepare your audio

   WAV, 44.1kHz, 16/24-bit. Target around -14 LUFS integrated loudness with a true-peak ceiling of -1 dBTP, so platforms don't auto-attenuate your master.

2. Build your cover art

   3000×3000px minimum, JPG/PNG, under 10MB, 300 DPI. No platform logos, handles, URLs, or blurry graphics — just title and artist name.

3. Sign up and pick a plan

   Create your dashboard account and activate the Subscription Plan that fits your catalog size — upload access unlocks once payment is confirmed.

4. Upload and fill in metadata

   Track title, artist credits, genre, language, writer/composer/producer credits, and AI disclosure if applicable. Choose your target platforms and caller tune networks.

5. Set your release date 2–3 weeks out

   This gives QC time to clear your release early and gives you a window to pitch the unreleased track to Spotify's editorial team via Spotify for Artists.

6. Claim your artist profiles

   Spotify for Artists, Apple Music for Artists, YouTube OAC once eligible — and register with IPRS if you wrote the song yourself.

Switching Distributors Without Losing Your Streams

If you're migrating an existing catalog from another distributor, order matters — get it wrong and platforms may treat your songs as brand-new releases, resetting your stream counts to zero.

1. Collect your existing data

   ISRC and UPC codes, exact titles and credits, original release dates, and your master WAV files and artwork from your old distributor.

2. Upload to SMSound India with the same ISRC

   Manually enter your existing ISRC rather than letting the system generate a new one — this is what lets platforms match the new delivery to your existing stream history instead of starting over.

3. Confirm the match, then take down the old listing

   Once your Spotify for Artists profile shows the release correctly under the same page, request a takedown from your old distributor. Don't run both distributors long-term — duplicate delivery risks takedowns on both.

Frequently Asked Questions