my entire album got leaked on youtube
One of the most disheartening things that has happened to me as an independent artist just happened through RouteNote.
I had an album called Icarus planned for release on June 26. A few days ago, I submitted a cancellation request because I was reconsidering some things, but later changed my mind and cancelled the removal ticket because I still wanted to continue with the rollout.
Now somehow the album has appeared on YouTube with a May 13 release date — over a month earlier than intended — without my permission.
What makes the situation even worse is that my album shows under the “Approved” section while also having a “Removed from sales” tag at the same time. The entire situation is confusing and feels completely mishandled.
As an artist, you spend months carefully planning a rollout, building anticipation, preparing visuals, scheduling announcements, and making sure everything comes out the way you envisioned. To suddenly see your project leaked early because of a distributor issue is honestly heartbreaking.
This experience seriously damaged my trust in RouteNote, especially because something this major should never happen in the first place. At this point, I genuinely do not feel comfortable distributing this album through them anymore.