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Soundcloud caused controversy recently by letting Universal Records delete content and now it's becoming clear why. Soundcloud, Universal, Sony and Warner are said to be on the cusp of a deal, one in which the music hoster gives the labels royalties and up to 15% of its business in exchange for not getting sued.

Anyone running a user-generated content site needs to seriously consider the implications of its users uploading infringing material, because it’s pretty much guaranteed to happen on a very large scale indeed.

Once the world’s largest recording labels and movie studios see this happening, things can go bad quickly, unless certain preventative steps are taken. Bringing the business into line with the DMCA is a necessary first step, one which will see the hosting site respond to takedown notices in a timely fashion.

Other sites have gone a step further. As underlined by the MegaSong debacle, YouTube gives some big record labels the right to take down content they don’t like, even if there are no apparent copyright infringement issues. YouTube doesn’t appear to get involved much in the process either, leaving the labels to decide what goes and what does not.

Another company that headed down that route recently was SoundCloud. The audio upload site has been coming on in leaps and bounds over the past five years, in part due to the popular and sometimes illegal content uploaded by its users. Recently, however, it was revealed that not only had the company given Universal Music the ability to take down infringing content, but to do so without oversight.

YouTube allows the labels to do that because it struck a distribution deal with them, but why would Soundcloud follow suit? News today suggests that this particular question answers itself.

According to a Bloomberg, Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group are “closing in” on a deal with Soundcloud which will see the service obtain licenses to host and distribute content from these major labels.

An anonymous source familiar with the negotiations said that the deal will not only see the labels getting a share of future Soundcloud revenue, but Universal, Sony and Warner each picking up a 3% to 5% stake in the business.

On top of that and most importantly, Berlin-based Soundcloud will receive assurances that it won’t get sued, a valuable stability that US-rival Grooveshark is unlikely to enjoy anytime soon.

No one involved in the talks is speaking on the record, but sources suggest that the agreement would value Soundcloud between $500 million and $600 million, not bad for company that was nibbling at the heels of MySpace just five years ago.

The 200 employee company is definitely on the up. One year ago Soundcloud reported having 200 million unique users, but by November 2013 that had increased to 250 million.

A target of one billion users leaves Soundcloud with plenty to do, but with the threat of large-scale litigation off the table, the process will be much, much easier.

Source: TorrentFreak

 

I'd like to add that the whores over at Google have been removing tons of high quality versions of songs from YouTube. They leave some shitty 360p or 480p stuff but remove the good quality ones. There was even a very creative video made for a Front Line Assembly song but it was also removed even though the label already had a track of the same quality up. You would think they would appreciate the extra publicity that the awesome FLA video would bring them but no, it was simply deleted. I think it's high time that we destroy the music/movie industries once and for all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNeQ4i7Ne8
Burn Hollywood burn, taking down Tinseltown
Burn Hollywood burn, burn down into the ground
Burn Hollywood burn, burn Hollywood burn
Take down Tinseltown, burn down to the ground​

 

Sadly soundcloud and other similar sites, once they are popular, either get bullied into submission or are bought out and made to tow the so called copyright line. How long will it be before someone posts a track they have created only for it to be removed because a couple of bars are similar to a Universal (or any of the so called thugs) owned (sic) song. A sad day for creativity.

 

I think that's already happening, someone was here complaining about that VERY thing SirSilly.

 

Ok.I think I kinda see what's going on now.It's the people using content that is not cleared?
Not too much of an issue for me as anything I make is original content 95% of the time.
But what if I made something very close to something else,without even knowing?

I really dislike that people still get all up in arms over samples.Been like this for a long time.
And how many people have we seen make art out of samples?

They have no idea how the sample based musician works.

Here's to all the crate diggers,diggin in record stores, thrift stores,Goodwill's,Salvation armies,and
anywhere else you can find vinyl.That go home and dig thru a record lookin for that perfect 1-4 bar piece.
Here's to all the digital samplers,choppin up whatever they can get their hands on,movies,music,whatever in Adobe Audition,Soundforge,Wavelab,Audacity,your Akai, or whatever you use.

Granted I feel bad to a certain degree for certain people like Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown's Drummer)
And The Winstons (Amen Break) and others (could go on all day) that have recorded really awesome parts
and samples of their stuff became more popular than the actual recording.

But it's kind of flattering to the original musician at the same time.You gotta have something really good for people to wanna take pieces of what you've made.I'm certain The Winstons never knew a piece of their song would start a genre yrs later.

 

Great post Lev!

 

Aww shucks,Thanks Cat!

 

I guess Cat just sampled Diabulus

 

Well...

Why dont we create a audio/music playing service similar to Soundcloud, in which the users submitting their content must first agree to terms and conditions giving full rights of 'public playability' or get paperwork signed by their label allowing them (if they are on a 'big' dildo munching label).

I know my above idea is stupid. But FUCK everything is going to shit it seems. Soundcloud was a great idea, kind of like Purevolume back in the day. Its really sad.

I think Bandcamp and personal (band/groupname) sites take the cake nowadays for 'allow-ability'. So fucking stupid that these big corps have so much power. And people like soundcloud allow it and dont think of the paperwork before they allow things.


The winner of a game of chess is always the person who has 4 moves planned ahead of the other. A prospector in the current must always think of the future self, cause they may not exist if they dont.

I personally (for no amount of money or fame) would never sign to any label. Id get sponsors and reps but no label. Id make my own if anything.

I would also probably avoid Itunes. I dont think everyone gets music from there. I think Bandcamp or personal is better than that too. I know the real money comes from sponsors and shows and selling productions to vocalists.

 

I didn't see it and now we have a problem because most of the comments are on this one.

 

Why would they make a deal where soundcloud gets to stay in business?
Would it not be easier just to wipe them out?
Oh, wait, now they get money for music they don't even own.... nicely played big business, nicely played...

 

Don't worry guys!

Double the post double the pleasure!

 

I posted a completey original track on soundcloud once and their stupid copyright infringment algorythm flagged my track and wouldnt let me post it. After searching for how to fix this they said i have to fill out this lonnng stupid form which they ask all kinds of personal info like name phone number address etc etc.... really intrusive just for music!!! Then the form goes to their admins and you have to wait until they approve it!!! After spending millions of hours to make a song, mix it, and then master it, and then prep it for soundcloud ex make clips covert to mp3 rates etc etc to have your track get denied over a stupid automated apparently imperfect algorythm...and now this news!!! makes me wanna do wat catalyst said!!!

 

does youtube uploaded music sounds better at 720p then 480?

is this post right?
http://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p

I really dislike soundcloud mostly because of limited free uploading space.

 

Thanks for being so cool about it. I should have double-checked but I was in a rush to get things done.

I don't know, it sounds like the quality goes up when you increase the video quality. Why would it take so much longer to stream the file otherwise when there is no video just an image?

Best thing to do is run our own tests which I would do if I weren't so busy.

 

Last time I had checked, 720p and 1080p had the same quality (AAC 128-192 kbps) and 480p had 96 kbps AAC. So, yes, it's better at HD. Also, streaming time/video size doesn't really have anything to do with whether there is a moving image or not but rather with the bitrate/size.

Edit: Re-checked them

See here:
- 140p > 125 kbps CBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MP4-AVC Video) / 23-26 kbps VBR, 22.05 KHz, AAC (MP4-3GP Video)
- 240p > 64 kbps CBR, 22.05 KHz, Mp3 (Flash Video) [~400 kbps Video] / 32-34 kbps VBR, AAC (3GP Mobile Video)
- 360p > 96-102 kbps VBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MPEG4, AVC) [~600 kbps Video] / 128 kbps VBR, 44.1 KHz, Ogg Vorbis (WebM, VP8 Video) [~800 kbps Video]
- 480p > 126 (128) kbps CBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MPEG4, AVC) [~1,000 kbps Video]
- 720p > 192-202 kbps VBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MPEG4, AVC) [~2,000 kbps Video]
- 1080p > 126 kbps CBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MPEG4, AVC) [~3,000 kbps Video] (Weird, but maybe they try to compensate for the video or something)
- 1440p > 126 kbps CBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MPEG4, AVC) [~4,000 kbps Video]
- 4K UHD > 126 kbps CBR, 44.1 KHz, AAC (MPEG4, AVC) [~15,500 kbps Video]

 

Mystery solved, thanks Gramofon.

 

this is good info.

thanks Gramofon and Catalyst.

soundcloud is going really bad, removing copyright mixes and for the limited free space.

although it is not designed for only audio streaming I'm trying to move anything to youtube that has a better feedback system, mobile support and no upload limits.

I was reading another interesting post here:
http://www.djtechtools.com/2014/07/13/your-dj-sets-arent-safe-on-soundcloud-6-alternatives-for-dj-content/

but don't really like any of them either.

for now my best soundcloud alternative is youtube.

just another question, according to Gramofon test which youtube video resolution could match (or be similar) to soundcloud audio stream quality?