soundcloud copyright
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Soundcloud responds to the copyright drama

soundcloud copyright

Although our look back at the year 2014 talked about much, one story we missed out was how much of the year was spent punctuated by the complaints of the users of SoundCloud, be it for the design changes that were accused of being style over substance, or the massive shift in copyright policing that has been steadily creeping in. As the rabble rousing has grown throughout the userbase, and people have been shifting to alternatives, SoundCloud have had to do some PR firefighting to claw back some reputation.

Even though the SoundCloud blog was updated mid-December, this story slipped through the cracks a bit over the Holiday period, with various corners of the web taking notice after the hangovers have cleared. The gist is that the company are stuck between a proverbial rock and hard place. As they’ve grown, the big labels have taken notice and started exercising their legal right to block what they see as copyrighted material being used without consent. So they wrote up a lengthy post reminding users about their stance and what the system is for infringing works.

Mixmag received an official statement from the company:

“As a responsible hosting platform, we work hard to ensure that everyone’s rights are respected. In the case of rights holders, that means having processes in place to ensure that any content posted without authorisation is removed quickly and efficiently.

“In the case of users, that means having separate processes in place to ensure that any content removed in error can be reinstated equally quickly. If any user believes that content has been removed in error – for example, because they had the necessary permissions from Universal Music and/or any other rights holder – then they are free to dispute the takedown.”

My Take

Really, there’s two parts to my reaction. The first is that, regardless of the legalities, the major labels are still living in the dark ages, burying their heads in the sand about how the modern internet user works. We want to create and share music and mixes. We’ve done it since forever. Hell, the term ‘mixtape’ got those same labels’ knickers in a twist when the audio cassette tape arrived. In many places, buyers ended up paying off the labels to keep them happy. Now, with the DMCA, we’ve got our very own example of using a sledgehammer to hit a nail, and even in 2015, they still don’t want to move into the internet age and modernise their business models. And this isn’t even the real issue… it’s more the fact that the DMCA is so weighted towards the large corporations with the resources to defend/monitor the system.

The second part is that the internet routes around damage. By this, I mean that the flow of information is inherent to not only the internet itself, but the people that use it. The cat’s out of the bag, people want to use the web in the way they have been with SoundCloud in the past, and they’ll always find a way. Whether it’s moving to new startups like hearthis.at, or doing things in less scrupulous ways, it’s going to happen. The more the labels squeeze SoundCloud the more it’ll shrivel up and die. And that’s exactly what they want, because they know the way things are is unsustainable for SoundCloud, since they aren’t even pulling a profit as it is. We’re stuck in this endless loop of whack-a-mole, which costs everyone a phenomenal amount of money, and, in the end, it’s us, the music fans and producers that lose out. Basically, we don’t need this bullshit.

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Dan Morse
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Opinionated DJWORX newsie. Loves Traktor, analogue mixers, vinyl and Android. The best Techno bedroom DJ you know.
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15 Comments

  1. You’re too right about the internet treating copyright/censorship as a problem to be routed around.

    Soundcloud flagged one of my original songs with a false positive copyright claim; a song I composed with sounds I synthesized with hardware I own. The only means of contesting the claim was for me to send the complainant (some jerk composer who shoots out DMCA claims like a toddler with an uzi) full name and address.

    So I routed around Soundcloud. I deleted all my content and all my accounts and set up shop on a competing site. Soundcloud is impotent and their limp response to this copyright epidemic isn’t worth the pixels it darkens.

  3. A friend of mine had some tracks taken down because they violated the copyright held by….
    wait for it…
    him.

    The content ID flags are great ideas in theory, but in practice they just aren’t good enough, and there doesn’t seem to be enough of an incentive to change it, since the industry types are getting what they want. Or at least something closer than what they had.

  5. A discussion I’ve been having with a friend for a while now is whether this is actually as big of a deal in the underground scene as in the mainstream? The reason I wonder is if it’s just an issue with mainstream music then I really have nothing to worry about. I doubt any of the underground house and techno mixes I use soundcloud for will include any tracks that sound much like anything whose copyright is held by a big label.

    Thoughts?

    1. As far as I see it, it becomes a problem for the underground because there are less ears pointed in that direction. The underground needs new listeners, so we need to be places other people are. If it’s harder for most people to find stuff they already know and find things related, then it will further isolate the underground.

      I look at it this way. I make DJ mixes of underground industrial/noise music. They are mostly made up of songs and artists from the last few years, but once in a while I might throw something in from ten or twenty years ago, when mainstream labels were releasing artists like Bigod20, Ministry, Chemlab, Nitzer Ebb, etc. Those mixes would be taken down, and people who have a clearer frame of reference for more “known” underground artists cannot hear the mix mainly comprised of unknown, lesser known, or further underground artists that are related to things they may already like.

      The other problem we have seen (I think it was Kaskade that ran into this, but I have friends that have had this happen to them as well) is the content ID program will pull down tracks posted by the copyright holder. So, for example, a friend of mine puts up a song he wrote, and holds the copyright for. He receives contact from Soundcloud’s content ID program that the track has been taken down because it violates copyright held by him. Because SCIENCE.

      That’s how I see it, at least.

  6. Great post, I wrote something similar on my own personal blog the other day. I had an idea of using money from pro soundcloud members to pay the labels a couple of cents to use their content, but maybe not allow that content to be downloaded?
    the money grabbing labels are still hovering around in the old paradigm of patriarchy as the whole world begins to shift away from that model, institutions and large corporations will crumble. There’s a great video from the guy behind zeitgeist about market economy and how our values are shifting. The labels and soundcloud are simply victims of this shift.

  7. “major labels are still living in the dark ages” – Amen! As they always have done – I’ve got an LP inner sleeve from the early 80s waiting to be framed for my studio wall. You know the one… “Home Taping is Killing Music” with the cassette and crossbones logo.

  8. Generation stupid thinks it should get all music for free, when nothing else is. Musicians who are professional don’t want to give their music away for free. Sorry, kiddies, but those are the rules of life.