Soundcloud has been our favourite way of sharing audio on soundplate.com and one of our main promotional tools for Soundplate Records since day one. The platform has been in the news almost daily for the past few months. From copyright claims, to deals to major labels and issues with it’s monetisation and subscription model it seems that Soundcloud has had a pretty rough time lately. Just as the dust is starting to settle on the Apple Music payments news earlier in the week, Today there are two big industry news stories and both could be bad news for the popular streaming service..
Major Labels Prepare to Hit Soundcloud With Lawsuits.
Several sources are today reporting that copyright infringement lawsuits from major music labels including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) will be filed very soon. This move from the majors comes just before SoundCloud’s plan to switch from a free platform to a subscription-based model. If this does happen and everything goes in the favour of the majors Soundcloud would likely be forced to close for good.
As the music industry prepares to totally change it’s revenue model if Apple Music becomes the successes it is planning for; many artists and labels may also be forced to re-think their promotional strategies. Soundcloud has become a standard part of the music promotion process, particularly in the electronic music scene. If it does die this could have major implications on the way new releases are promoted, artists create fan-bases and labels find new talent.
It’s worth mentioning this is not the first time rumours have been flying around about legal battles and danger for Soundcloud shutting down, and we hope this does not spell the end for the platform which has helped us find so much of the music we love.
Beatport Releases Free Embeddable Streaming Player, Paying Artists For Each Play
So if Soundcloud does go, how will Blogs and labels share music? Beatport are aiming to answer this question with the latest feature on their new streaming platform. A free embeddable player that will pay artists / rights-holders for plays. The details of what Beatport will pay have not yet been announced but the fact that they will pay from day 1 is going to be music to many artist’s ears.
We have not been totally sold on Beatport’s streaming platform yet but this does look like a giant step in the right direction. Perhaps the embeddable player will become the new industry standard way of sharing tracks and Beatport will pick up where Soundcloud stops (if it does indeed stop).
Check out an example of the new player below..
But Is This Really The End of Soundcloud?
To be honest, we don’t know and neither does anyone else. Soundcloud has been threatened before and survived but with the rate the music industry is changing right now who knows..
For what it’s worth, while I understand the concerns of the majors and rights-holders over payments I do personally hope Soundcloud can survive as a community of music lovers and promotional tool. For me, Soundcloud is a real leveller. It allows new artists the opportunity to reach huge audiences previously only afforded to artists with major label backing or high levels of investment. There are plenty of good platforms online now that do pay artists and the indies will always find new ways to market their tunes but even so, I’m pretty attached to Soundcloud and I know I’m not alone…