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My mind is literally reeling upon encountering that level of retarded, I can feel parts of my brain dying off in self-defense.

So, are Soundcloud stealing artists' music, and making that music freely available to stream, or are artists uploading music to Soundcloud and making streaming links to said music publicly available?

I'm a member of APRA but I would have thought the act of uploading to Soundcloud would imply you are giving your track for free to the world.

What will happen when new territory means big revenue is we we all have to start paying for the service.
Guys with the pro membership will get screwed and free loaders like me will probably join.

Watched a similar scenario unfold when backed a former member of a famous band that broke up.
Did his material in a showcase for a label lost out so he joined an already signed band and recorded
the material we showcased and released an album.

Management knew they owned the copyrights for some of the music so they waited until the band got radio and air play. Once they started their tour they filed suite against the label which also owned radio back then. Then sat back and got a piece of the action even though he broke a contract that wasnt worth a dime.
By waiting for greedy record companies to sign a desperate artist they cashed in doing better than they would have as the big guys had thier money on the line now.

Well if SoundCloud have to pay PRA's then they can only derive income from adds or charging listeners, most of who wont bother with the service why should they if they can listen to Radio (mostly ad sponsored) for free ?

how does soundcloud pay for it's servers, maintenance and bandwidth now?

People using soundcloud, as Dante suggests, already know that everybody WILL have access to their files for free. Thousands of unknown musicians out of the media enjoy uploading their music under this condition because they know they have the chance to get their music known.

I guess the problem arises when they use original music without its due allowance from the owner, for commercial purposes, not telling the composer they are having profits from its music, perhaps used to push their web page and their sponsors, radio stations or any other commercial article, without sharing the earnings.

garyb wrote:how does soundcloud pay for it's servers, maintenance and bandwidth now?

I would imagine mostly by User subscriptions (user being those that upload, not those that listen).

In other words music makers (other than those on the free basic platform) pay to have their music listened to.

yes, maybe that's it. it doesn't seem like that would actually be profitable in any way, though.
there's probably another revenue stream in there somewhere. i'm just curious...

Well, here it mentions advertising, deals with labels and premium services (the latter being what I referred to).

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/11/soundc ... es-of-14m/

ahh advertising. yes, this would be expected.

but it's like i thought. Soundcloud hemorrhages a tremendous amount of money. losing 29million dollars on 14million dollars of revenue, wow!
they're either subsidized or going out of business before any licensing agreements could be made anyway...

reading further, they ARE heavily subsidized. the income from the sources you mentioned, Dante, is just a drop in the bucket. the real money comes from some shady investment groups, not shady as in criminal(maybe), but shady as in secret money. there is a bigger purpose at work, when a company is given 123 million dollars and valued at 700 million dollars, but loses 30 million dollars a year(well, 12 million last year, 30 million this year). what is going on here? heck, if they're losing money like that, they might as well pay artists just like any other medium. most artists, the kind with free accounts, aren't likely to get paid, anyway.

Another reason for gracious public "servants" to step in and right the wrongs of the offended ones.
Regulations.

If it moves tax it.
If it still keeps moving regulate it.
When it stops moving subsidize it...

@garyb, since 'One Life Complete' has proven popular in the last financial year (50% of its 5 year total plays) - when the advertisers pay Soundcloud and ASCAP collect the royalties and pass them over to APRA under reciprocal arrangements and then pay me, I will have to divvy up the percentage of the tracks plays off all hitfoundry ones then send you a cheque. But don't forget John Coopers share co without him none of it would have happened.

Payola anyone ?

Quite mind blowing really

hmmm....

both John and I are happy in that scenario.
i guess...

I could do the catering for a few dollars in your bussiness, so I can get my 32GB of ram!

it takes you too long to get here.

Well, I tried...

An article about this appeared in ElReg today:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/01 ... streaming/

I can't help but wonder when is PRS and such going to go after Google?

Fact: pretty much every single song ever recorded is available on youtube, right now. OK, I haven't personally searched for every song ever recorded, but I am yet to enter a search term for it to come up blank. As I understand it, the ridiculously unfair automated copyright infringement detection software ('Content ID') only interests itself in monetised videos - is that right? I've only heard of it flagging videos of monetised content providers, but I may be wrong in saying that.

Anyway, an off the top of my head album: Pink Floyd's The Wall. BAM - first hit, the complete album.

Let's try another: um... Acker Bilk, Stranger on the Shore. Lots of choices available.

Motorhead, Iron Fist - BAM. Kate Bush, The Sensual World - BAM. Rush, 2112 - BAM.

Something more obscure...The Enid, Aerie Faerie Nonsense, not a problem, it's there.

I just don't get the soundcloud thing at all, I didn't even think it was a monetised service (like iTunes is). I thought the idea was that you, as an artist, could upload your music and make it publicly available, for free.

I just tried looking at SC and one of the tracks on the front page is by Miley Cyrus. I follow her link and I'm taken to a page containing a bunch of her music. Now, presumably she either uploaded that content, or authorised its upload. In doing so, she has made the links to the content public. She has therefore authorised anybody with an internet connection to stream/download her music. For free. What the hell does this have to do with Soundcloud?! Nothing whatsoever as far as I can see.

We humans are so complicated, everything could be MUCH simpler nevertheles... but we don't want to, we want money, then money, and then some more money... so simplicity is not going to happen, unfortunately...

Nestor wrote:We humans are so complicated, everything could be MUCH simpler nevertheles... but we don't want to, we want money, then money, and then some more money... so simplicity is not going to happen, unfortunately...

stonberg just showed that it's all there...for free.
So questioning the sense of Soundcloud.