Unchained Music Distribution passport
- Platform
- Rakuten Music
- Site
- rakuten.tv
- Social
- @rakutentv
Rakuten Music is one of Japan’s top streaming platforms, connecting millions of listeners with new music daily. With Unchained Music, artists can share their tracks, expand their reach, and grow their audience across Asia.
Rakuten Music is a Japanese music streaming platform operated by Rakuten, one of the country’s largest e-commerce and digital services groups. Launched in 2016, the service offers a robust catalogue that spans J-Pop, anime soundtracks, indie releases, and international hits, providing listeners with a well rounded and culturally relevant music experience. Rakuten Music leverages the company’s extensive ecosystem, spanning online retail, fintech, and mobile services, to deliver a seamless and convenient streaming environment for millions of users. The platform features curated playlists, personalized recommendations, and editorial picks that help listeners discover new artists and stay connected to trending releases. Its integration with Rakuten’s loyalty program, Rakuten Points, creates unique engagement opportunities, allowing users to earn and redeem points through their music activity. With strong cross platform accessibility and a deep connection to Japan’s digital lifestyle, Rakuten Music remains a notable player in the region’s streaming landscape, blending entertainment with the broader Rakuten ecosystem.
Five questions, answered for this platform specifically.
Rakuten Music ingests releases from approved digital distributors who provide audio files, artwork, and metadata formatted according to Japanese technical and localization standards. Once processed, tracks become available inside the Rakuten Music app for subscribers to stream.
Rakuten Music needs properly localized metadata, including Japanese and English titles, artist names, composer/lyricist information, genre classifications, and rights ownership. Clean metadata helps ensure correct display across search, charts, and curated playlists.
Rakuten Music features tracks via curated playlists, new release sections, editorial highlights, real time charts, mood-based categories, and cross promotion through Rakuten’s e-commerce and rewards ecosystem. High engagement tracks may receive priority placement.
Rakuten Music does not offer a global artist dashboard, but distributors provide insights such as stream counts, playlist inclusions, demographic breakdowns, and territory specific performance data based on Rakuten’s reporting feeds.
Royalties are determined by listener activity, subscription tier usage, and Rakuten’s licensing agreements with rights holders. Rakuten Music reports usage data to distributors, who then pay labels or artists according to standard pay out cycles.
Set the release up in the app and it goes to this platform with the rest of them, delivered to spec and checked by a person first.
Upload the release yourself in the app, on the plan that fits, and send it to every store you want in one go.
Start DIYFor multi-release plans and label rosters, scoped with the services team before anything starts.
Apply for Artist & Label Services