I think Apple was/is scared of "unprofessional" music. Apple doesn't want to be the YouTube of music. Not allowing shitty (or pirated!) music is a hard problem to solve. A bunch of suits and contracts does a decent job because not many people are going to take the time if they just want to troll.
So, how does Distrokid factor in to this? After reading, I had the impression that anybody with $20 could upload their music via Distrokid... is the idea that the annual fee is supposed to be a filter to prevent shitty music? Pirated music is one thing, but 'shitty music' seems a bit tougher to police.
> As others have said, shitty is entirely subjective.
I strongly disagree that shitty is entirely subjective. Contextually, "shitty" could mean music recorded on a cell phone, or tracks that were 2 seconds long, or tracks that have been transcoded 7 times and sound like they're being played from a walkie-talkie at the bottom of a well.
I can understand why a music platform might want to enforce some standards of professionalism or technical competency, even if they didn't want to do so for matters of taste.
or tracks that are actually completely stolen. this is a HUGE problem on BeatPort. DJs take 90s house records and just change the speed do a small edit and then release it as their own production. and BeatPort releases it. I have many friends who are furious because their music has been blatantly stolen.
