Universal To License Music To SoundCloud In Streaming Deal (thestack.com) 49
An anonymous reader writes: Universal Music Group has agreed to license its music to online audio platform SoundCloud – a major step for the popular startup, which has struggled to receive legitimate recognition in the industry. SoundCloud will enjoy access to Universal material, including work from top global artists signed to the label such as Adele, Taylor Swift and Kanye West. Conversely Universal will be able to access SoundCloud's advertising, analytics and data tools with the aim of increasing revenue streams and bolstering fan/artist engagement.
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Well if Kanye West, Adele, and Taylor Swift are considered to be music it might be time to agree with the Republicans!
Since you're such a sophisticated listener, can you provide a list of what you personally consider to be "music"?
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"Talented" is a subjective metric.
I think she's whiny. And apparently, has a thing for writing songs that are creepy and stalker-y. Which wouldn't even be so bad (good songs have been written about stalking someone), except it's played off the same way as Twilight being played off as "romantic".
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You remind me of a former mother-in-law. She'd run off at the mouth, bashing those Bravo reality TV shows because they're such an easy target, but when someone would ask what kind of TV shows *she* liked she would hide behind a lame joke because she was afraid to be mocked.
Coward.
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I didn't say that Mr West was or wasn't a talented musician. I'm just waiting for you to man up and mention stuff you like, not just stuff you don't.
Double coward.
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Thanks, I created a channel on Pandora and added those in there. I'm usually more of a Bob Seger person lately but it's good to have a bit of variety.
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Well if Kanye West, Adele, and Taylor Swift are considered to be music it might be time to agree with the Republicans!
Haters gonna hate!
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Expect the Republicans to... shut this down! Their kind hates music.
No they don't. They love to co-opt music whose meaning they don't understand and use it without permission at political rallies.
and... (Score:3)
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top global artists signed to the label such as Adele, Taylor Swift and Kanye West
And now you understand how the Norks feel about listening to KPop blasting on loudspeakers all the time.
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Who are these people and why are they on my lawn?
I'll just keep pirating, thanks (Score:1)
Although, considering the music coming out these days, I've already got all I need.
"Legitimate recognition in the industry" (Score:1)
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wishing doesn't pay the bills.
You didn't read "The secret", did you?
Preventing accidental infringement (Score:3)
artists take their content straight to Soundcloud with very little overhead and no gatekeepers
I thought the gatekeepers were the traditional music publishers. A music publisher differs from a record label in that a record label owns copyright in a recording (as embodied in a CD), while a music publisher owns copyright in the underlying musical work (as embodied in sheet music). There are millions of existing musical works, with BMI alone controlling a repertory of over nine million, and only so many possible hooks in the seven notes of the scale. (Proof available on request.) So when an artist write
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So when an artist writes and records a piece of music and uploads it to SoundCloud, what steps is the artist supposed to have taken to ensure that his song doesn't accidentally infringe copyright in one of the millions of existing songs? I ask because I compose music, am considering seeking extra exposure through SoundCloud, and want to limit my liability in cases of accidental infringement. Has anyone heard from a lawyer on this?
What do you expect a copyright lawyer to say? It's like asking a patent lawyer how you can be sure your invention doesn't infringe on any of the millions of patents out there - and they are all at least publicly available. He'd probably tell you it'd be a very long and very expensive search through convoluted legalese that wouldn't guarantee anything anyway. With copyrighted works there isn't even a repository to compare with, so I don't see there's anything you can do to truly avoid it. Even if someone off
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. . . what steps is the artist supposed to have taken to ensure that his song doesn't accidentally infringe copyright in one of the millions of existing songs? . . . Has anyone heard from a lawyer on this?
Unlike patents, independently coming up with a similar song is not necessarily infringing - see the Chinese-walled reverse-engineering of BIOS for an example. Of course, it would be up to a jury to decide.
(YMMV, IANAL, DMCA.)
Imputing access from radio play (Score:2)
You appear to refer to a defense that an alleged infringer never had access to the copyright owner's work, in the "access plus similarity equals copying" formula from copyright case law. But I seem to remember reading that the court can impute access if the copyright owner can show that the alleged infringer reasonably should have heard the copyright owner's composition. This would appear to make the independent creation defense unavailable if the earlier work had been played on FM radio during the alleged
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Boiling your comment down: Publish anyway and attempt to use the easier to ask forgiveness than permission (EAFP) principle [stackoverflow.com]. Now on mitigating risk of an exception:
or if it's really too close to a copy try to make a reasonable settlement.
I wonder what sort of settlement the incumbent music publishers would consider "reasonable", especially if it's something for which I never received royalties in the first place, such as the background music for a film or video game released under a Creative Commons license. I could stop infringing by taking down the work containing the piece imm
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I can't believe I'm about to defend Kanye West, but here goes:
In the sense of being a "top artist", Kanye is a draw. He pushes records, and makes headlines. Instead of dismissing him as the ass he is, he gets headlines both because of what he says and because of the ass he married. That makes people money.
And on top of that, I have a couple of Kanye songs on my playlists when I work out. So, if you can sell to someone like me, who generally gets a distaste for listening to music by people whose personal
Soundcloud (Score:2)
Misread headline (Score:2)
Thought it said "steaming deal".
So? (Score:4, Informative)
Soundcloud is one of the more dynamic and interesting sources for music. Who cares if it receives "legitimate recognition in the industry"? The industry is a dinosaur and is best left for the junkpile of history alongside the whale oil industry.
I find some of the most interesting new music on Soundcloud. Nothing from Taylor Swift or Adele is going to make me more likely to use it.
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That's nice. So Soundcloud had a slashdot user. Party!
In the mean time there are millions upon millions of potential customers who complain about the lack of current pop-music on such services. Personally I'm more concerned with working my way through David Bowie's back library but that doesn't mean I need to be completely oblivious to the rest of the world. To answer your question:
So now there are potentially millions of more people interested in the service. That list just doesn't include you or me.
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If you're just now working your way through Bowie's back library, you're not Soundcloud's target audience. I don't know, maybe iHeart Radio where you can have your tastes curated for you is more appropriate.
Soundcloud is to Apple Music what SOHO and Chelsea are to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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If you're just now working your way through Bowie's back library, you're not Soundcloud's target audience.
No not JUST now, but I am currently listening to records I had to dust off from the bottom of the shelf (I should really get a copy of Ziggy Stardust digitally). News about someone who's stuff you haven't heard in a while does that.
But that is what I said wasn't it. They didn't do it out of interest of you or me, but rather the millions of others out there.
Possibly RIP soundcloud? (Score:1)
Somehow I don't see a lot of money flowing in the direction of Soundcloud from Universal, and wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of changes to allow people to access music only in ways they really wouldn't want to, and eventually Soundcloud is completely different and ends up fading away.
There goes the neighborhood (Score:2)