Soundcloud To Become A Paid Subscription Service
Soundcloud is one of the most popular music streaming sites in the world. As of January 2016 it has an estimated 377.40 Million people visiting its site a month! The site always has the latest music from major artists, and encourage independent artists and producers to upload their work to the site.
Soundcloud has been famous for launching many careers and is a site that managers and record labels visit to scout for new talent. But the dynamics of Soundclouds business structure is changing and it may effect its users.
Also Read: How CD Baby Can Distribute Your Music To The World
Soundcloud Subscription Services
If you have not been in tune with music news or have been living under a rock for a couple of years now, you will discover that Soundcloud is undergoing some major changes in terms of its streaming services.
The reason for this is that the three major record labels Sony, UMG (Universal Music Group), and Warner Music Group have filed discrepancies towards Soundcloud for hosting the music of their artists without paying the proper fees to do so. Of course if you know music you know that any copy right music can not be used by anyone without prior consent from the copy right owner, or without paying a licensing fee.
What Soundcloud has been doing since its inception is host the music of major artistsĀ for free; without paying a licensing fee. This is 100% ILLEGAL . And now that SoundCloud and U.K. collection society PRS reached a settlement after they sued Soundcloud; the two other major record companies want their fair share of royalties.
Soundcloud Signs Licensing Deal With UMG
What Soundcloud has done is signed a licensing deal with both UMG (Universal Music Group) and Warner Music Group. This will allow them to legally host the music catalog of these record labels. The only record label that has not agree to a deal is Sony. They have their reasons, but it is said that Sony will eventually join the other labels in striking a deal. It would only benefit them.
Soundcloud Paid Subscription Model
The contract that UMG, Warner Music Group and Soundcloud have come up with is a paid subscription tier model. This simpley means that to offset some of the costs of licensing music from from these record labels, and to also bring in profits for the company, Soundcloud will become a monthly paid services platform. This is liken to other streaming services such as Pandora, Spotify and Tidal. the paid subscription model is of more value to stake holders than as-supported play.
Our Thoughts On Music Streaming Services
We feel like there are a few pros and cons to streaming services, and we’re sure that you do as well. But one thing is for sure that streaming music online is the future of the music industry. In fact many industries are doing business online and it’s a good thing to see the music industry catching up.
So the question is how are you going to deal with this? Are you willing to dish out the $9.99 a month (speculating; this price seems to be the standard among Music Streaming Services.) Or are you going to try your best to find music and download it Illegally?
Either way a change is coming to Soundcloud, you may have to pull all your sounds down and relocate them to another free service website, or keep the songs up there and pay the monthly subscription to add more.