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SoundCloud's Collapse

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Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#71

Post by [deleted] »

snom380 wrote: post #65
thinbeige wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's understandable that employees vent their frustration in public They still break an agreement. > YouTube is evidence that it _is_ possible, Music isn't their core. And btw the agreement between Youtube and the German GEMA took a decade.

Does the fact that it's not their core contradict what I'm saying? Youtube is still hugely popular for people to share their own recordings and remixes. I know that it took a long time for YouTube to figure out the licensing stuff. As I said, tremendously difficult, yes, but not impossible.

[deleted]

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#73

Post by k-mcgrady »

thinbeige wrote: post #32
k-mcgrady wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> So what. There also many excellent major label artist and it's good to have them. You're missing the point. I've no problem with major label artists but when you start dealing with them you start dealing with licensing. Then you waste time, don't develop the platform, and abandon the indie artists that got you to where you are. You need to take the point in context of the rest of my argument. When Spotify/Apple Mu…

> You're missing the point. I've no problem with major label artists but when you start dealing with them you start dealing with licensing. You think all those mixes come for free? They have to be licensed as well once the embedded song snippets exceed 30sec which most of them do (also depending on the local jurisdiction). Soundcloud had to find agreements with the labels sooner or later anyway because of the mixes a…

>> You think all those mixes come for free? They have to be licensed as well once the embedded song snippets exceed 30sec which most of them do (also depending on the local jurisdiction).

Again you're not understanding what I'm saying. You seem to think of music (or SoundCloud) as only EDM. When SoundCloud started it was largely amateur and indie 'analog' musicians and songwriters (i.e. people playing instruments and writing their own music). None of that needs licensed. Those people, despite not making any money, were paying SoundCloud £9.99 per month to increase their storage space and see listener stats. Obviously I don't know how many but there were badges on the profiles to indicate a paying user and there were a significantly high percentage. There was quite a large community of this type of music around a lot of genres. None of it needed licensed. If you stick to indie artists you don't need to deal with licensing. People doing mixes can use MixCloud which automatically licenses uploads some how.

So, my point is, SoundCloud did not start off with DJ mixes or copyrighted material. It started off very legitimately and had a decent business model. They could have made a nice business out of it but like most SV businesses preferred to sink a load of VC money and 'grow' with no ultimate business model.

Edit:

>> If they can succeed with this music selection and find listeners like you and who pay, great for them, but obviously they can't.

My comment was nothing to do with listeners paying - it was about artists paying. Artists have always been able and willing to pay for spotlight/storage/stats.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#74

Post by Yokohiii »

thinbeige wrote: post #18
Yokohiii wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot follow you. By no means you can openly criticize the managers of your own company. Even nowadays this could be handled as mutiny. On top of that, management is usually only half transparent at best. Causing doubt if the decisions are just bad or nobody got the whole picture.

You are right and I was not clear. What I mean: Since they all signed NDAs they are not allowed to openly criticize their company—ever. Not when being hired and not after being fired. Since 173 were fired it's easy to ignore NDAs because they won't get caught. But it's not right, they break a significant agreement and this is so typical for employees (just head to Glassdoor and how much internal stuff is disclosed).

No offense and I am no lawyer. But I think you get something wrong about NDAs. It is useful to handle confidentiality of company information. I.e. during the process of signing contracts with music giants or even the strategy decision to do that, can apply to an NDA. But at some time this information will go public. An NDA could only apply if you later leak confidential details about contracts for example. There is also a lot of complaint about the management and it's behaviour, NDAs won't stop individuals to reveal someone has bad manners, but there is always a possibility to accuse them of slander.

tl;dr obvious fact > nda > deals behind closed doors

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#75

Post by tanilama »

elmar wrote: post #33
Mikushi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happens everywhere. In corp I've seen engineers go behind their manager's back to write something in their favourite language knowing it would've been rejected if discussion had happen beforehand.

I think most of google sucesses outside search were done like that without the CEO having knowledge.

Ads: doubleclick, bought

Maps: bought

Youtube: bought

Android: bought

What else?

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#76

Post by thinbeige »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #73
thinbeige wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're missing the point. I've no problem with major label artists but when you start dealing with them you start dealing with licensing. You think all those mixes come for free? They have to be licensed as well once the embedded song snippets exceed 30sec which most of them do (also depending on the local jurisdiction). Soundcloud had to find agreements with the labels sooner or later anyway because of the mixes a…

>> You think all those mixes come for free? They have to be licensed as well once the embedded song snippets exceed 30sec which most of them do (also depending on the local jurisdiction). Again you're not understanding what I'm saying. You seem to think of music (or SoundCloud) as only EDM. When SoundCloud started it was largely amateur and indie 'analog' musicians and songwriters (i.e. people playing instruments and…

> Again you're not understanding what I'm saying.

How many times do you want to repeat this?

> SoundCloud did not start off with DJ mixes or copyrighted material.

The CEO and CTO were themselves very much into EDM. SC positioned itself repetoire-wise as a DJ platform from very early on, most tracks, traffic, the first surge were EDM-based the first years. And 99% was copyrighted material stitched together. I don't know where you have your information from but it's just blatantly wrong.

Anyways, I think that our current discussion does not contribute to the initial points in any way and doesn't make us both feeling better, so I stop here. Have a nice day!

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#77

Post by DigitalJack »

jopie wrote: post #48
iagooar wrote: post #14

This shows us, that company valuations are ridiculous and actually mean nothing. Is SoundCloud worth a billion dollars? Well, it might be on paper or in the imaginations of the founders, but what does it really mean? To me, it's worth nothing. The real problem is: these companies start to operate from the perspective of "having" those millions of dollars. This is why they hire too many people for too much money. They…

How does this compare to Spotify which has 3000+ employees, debt financing of over a billion dollars, and an insane valuation? What does the future hold for that company whether it IPOs or not?

Good grief, what the heck does Spotify do with 3000+ employees?

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#78

Post by fs111 »

DigitalJack wrote: post #77
jopie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this compare to Spotify which has 3000+ employees, debt financing of over a billion dollars, and an insane valuation? What does the future hold for that company whether it IPOs or not?

Good grief, what the heck does Spotify do with 3000+ employees?

burn money?

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#79

Post by Myrmornis »

WJW wrote: post #52
Myrmornis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it shows us that our economies make it very hard to maintain a valuable and beautiful cultural/artistic ecosystem as a commercial entity.

I feel it is also a culture thing: Some artistic subcommunities seem to revel in the image of the 'starving artist' and making a lot of money is often regarded as 'selling out'. Certainly anything liked by the mainstream immediately loses its appeal for the groups that like to think the have exquisite tastes. (almost by definition) So, websites like soundcloud find themselves in a bind: on one hand they can't start m…

I agree, GitHub is a nice comparison, and has been transformative in promoting a hobbyist's ecosystem while also being a viable commercial entity. However, I think you are being a bit unfair and leaning towards characterizing the artists as valuing obscurity and non-mainstreamness per se. The point about SoundCloud is that it provided access to the people making music from their bedrooms, the hobbyists of github. Arty music types were attracted to the platform not (only) out of a pretentious desire to avoid the mainstream but because many, most even, of our culture's musical gems are surely to be found in the long tail of not-(yet) commercial music.
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