Music lovers, it’s your time to rejoice! SoundCloud has finally sealed the deal with Sony Music to increase the number of songs that listeners can access. The deal is also expected to help Sony Music artists to make a profit off their tracks hosted on the service.
This isn’t the first deal SoundCloud has signed off as it had previously signed an agreement with the likes of Merlin, Universal Music Group and even Warner Music for access to thousands of tracks – making it a fierce rival for Spotify and Pandora. With this deal, SoundCloud will be hosting over 110 million tracks which will turn the platform into the lord of music streaming kingdom (an exaggeration coming from a SoundCloud fanatic!).
This deal however comes after last year’s fiasco where Sony Music removed original recordings of over a dozen artists including names as Adele, Hozier, Miguel, Kelly Clarkson as negotiations between the two groups went kaput. Rumor has it that the ‘lack of monetization,’ was the main reason behind the unsuccessful deal. This time however, SoundCloud seem to have resolved this dilemma by letting artists earn money through subscription services, which will be rolling out this year. It may be too early to say, but chances are that SoundCloud may no longer be a freebie for its 350 million monthly users. However, there has been no official statement indicating clear plans of subscription as of now.
In fact, according to SoundCloud CEO and co-founder Alexander Ljung:
‘We are going to launch subscription services later this year. No details to share on that yet other than I would think of it as an add-on rather than a change to the existing service.’
What is for sure is SoundCloud has invested a good amount of time into creating a platform for artists to upload their tracks, share with fans and track the performance of their music scores over the network. They can opt to be Basic, Pro or Premium users and enjoy several perks including revenue sharing, analytics and data that will enable artists to build a relationship with their fans. We, the fans just hope that SoundCloud can still be enjoyed without significant changes and may continue to provide fans with quality music to keep us occupied during brutal hours at work!
We, the fans just hope that SoundCloud can still be enjoyed without significant changes and may continue to provide fans with quality music to keep us occupied during brutal hours at work!
