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Free digital distribution platform goes live in the UK

By | Published on Wednesday 5 March 2014

Music Kickup

A Finnish start-up offering free digital distribution services to artists went live in the UK last week.

Called Music Kickup, the platform currently enables signed-up artists to get their content into iTunes, Spotify, Deezer and Google Play, with most other major European download and streaming services set to be added in due course. Although currently targeting self-releasing artists, the service says it will add additional tools for labels seeking roster-wide digital distribution later this spring.

Entering what is now a pretty crowded market place – with a plethora of digital distributors already offering the same services to artists or labels or both – Music Kickup’s USP is that it won’t charge a set-up free or commission for its services. While it’s not entirely clear how the company will therefore make any money, the firm’s FAQs say that distribution will be just one part of a wider business, with other operations presumably subsidising the costs of running a free-to-use digital distribution service.

The site says: “The whole Music Kickup service is built out of many pieces – the distribution platform is just one. We have been able to incur the costs of running this distribution service to other parts of our company services and profits. By doing this enabling one of the most disruptive and powerful music services ever to be built. We think that’s pretty damn cool!”

Also due to go live later this spring is a Kickup Career Path platform, described as “a groundbreaking artist development toolset and service that serves as the artist’s personal trainer, pushing them forward task by task”.

Announcing the service’s UK launch last week, the company’s CEO Antti Silventoinen told CMU: “Our disruptive technology enables 100% free and super fast distribution. This combined with our upcoming Career Path creates a great platform for artists to develop and build their careers”.



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