A vital resource for new music, SoundCloud is used by millions of musicians and fans each day. Hell, Clash even has an account – check it out HERE.
For a long time now, though, the organisation has been criticised for falling to pay musicians. Sure, their material may well rack up thousands, even millions of plays – but where was the return?
Now it seems that the company is beginning to put in place a model for artists to receive payment for their success. Speaking to the Guardian, SoundCloud co-founder Eric Wahlforss revealed that plans are already underway to monetize the streaming service.
"We’re experimenting with different monetization approaches. We’re throwing a couple of things out there and testing the waters a bit" he said, before continuing: "When you have millions of followers and millions of listeners, you’ve got some point expecting there to be some sort of monetization there. We hear that loud and clear."
Funnily enough, Eric Wahlforss is actually a musician – he releases under the name Forss. "Some artists really get this idea of a real-time expression platform where anyone can participate and super-quickly get to listen to the latest stuff" he argued. "That’s what we want to get to, and we think the artists and labels that embrace that paradigm are the ones who’ll win on our platform."
What are your thoughts? Can SoundCloud pull this off? And why other services should follow suit? Get involved in the debate on Twitter.
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