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SoundCloud's Collapse

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Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#301

Post by nunez »

I haven't used SoundCloud that much, but the last time I seriously used it was in late 2015 for finding solid trap music. Finding unsigned material was a lot easier in 2014 than in 2015; everything in the first few pages was from huge signed artists.

I also gave Go a chance so I could download stuff I liked onto my iPhone. It was such a confusing service. I paid $9.99/mo to download tracks. There was no way to download albums. It was also difficult to find things that I wanted to hear. I cancelled after a month or so.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#302

Post by sillysaurus3 »

bogomipz wrote: post #300
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that article was written by a VC

Saying that an article skews to the orientation and outlook of the author(in this case a venture capitalist) is no way an attack on that author. The context of the entire comment was that this definition was not universal.

Then what's your response to this? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14887245

An ad hominem doesn't need to be an attack to be an ad hominem. It's just an argument against the person instead of an argument against their argument.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#303

Post by bogomipz »

cookiecaper wrote: post #289
bogomipz wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"How many bright technical entrepreneurs have been crushed by rent-seekers milking the royalties out of a 40-year-old track?" Anything after Jan 1st of 1978 is now capped at 35 years, so these are becoming less and less See: http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/gosainkaplanrecapture123.h... >"Copyright has completely lost the plot." Well the copyright of the of recording is there to protect the record label's investmen…

I actually didn't know about recapture rights, so thanks for sharing that. It is nice that such a compromise was thrown in there, though it's not clear to me that the copyright cartels would take such attempts lying down. The legislation's requirements for recapture are not only fairly involved, but there seem to be several provisions that could become the center of a protracted legal case. It's one thing to have leg…

Nobody is forcing artists to sign bad deals with record companies though. I am no way defending record companies here but it seems kind of silly to make a deal with the devil and then complain about the terms afterwards. Anyone is free to try to negotiate for things like reversions and there is no such thing as a standard record deal. Artists such as REM, Metallica and Prince have all famously done negotiated reversions way before the 35 years.

The US is actually unique in that reversion is non-assignable, so an artist can't give up the right to receiving their music back even if they wanted to give it up.

The UK isn't nearly as kind in this regard. Duran Duran were recently prohibited by an English court from claiming their reversions in the US. See:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/02/reflex-action-...

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#304

Post by Myrmornis »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #285
Myrmornis wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to the non-mainstream music that is what people originally loved soundcloud for. The figures you refer to are entirely dominated by sales for music and movies of mainstream genres.

By definition, there will be less money for non-mainstream anything , unless the target audience happens to be particularly rich. I guess I'm failing to understand what your vision of a better music market would look like. Can you describe it?

> By definition, there will be less money for non-mainstream anything

Consider a market with genre A with 1 million listeners, and 10 million other genres with 1 listener each. We can agree that the definition of the word "mainstream" will be such that genre A is "mainstream", and yet there is much more money in the sum of the non-mainstream genres.

> I guess I'm failing to understand what your vision of a better music market would look like. Can you describe it?

When I said "valuable ecosystem" I meant culturally valuable, not necessarily revenue/year valuable. I am simply saying that it would be nice if our world satisfied the following:

IF:

Some sound engineers who are into electronic music create a website which allows lots of people to share underground electronic music with each other, and start employing people to work on the website

THEN:

The website can continue to play the role which people have come to love it for, without having to change much, and the employees will be reasonably and stably compensated for working on the website, indefinitely.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#305

Post by flycaliguy »

cookiecaper wrote: post #295
briandear wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is old so now you can’t own it? Does a 40 year old house suddenly become public domain just because people like to visit? If you made something, you and your heirs have a right to that, it doesn’t just get confiscated because it’s popular. Some of Bob Dylan’s songs are over 50 years old; does that mean he shouldn’t own the stuff he created? That is just theft. Nobody has a “right” to anything I create unles…

That is not how intellectual goods work. They require their own class of property laws called "intellectual property" precisely because they are different from real property. Real property provides the basic needs of human life, and any single parcel or space can only be occupied or used by a single entity at a time. It exists in time and space as a physical good. Persons and families are entitled to protect this pro…

Language like "perfect fidelity in an unlimited number of minds" just doesn't add up in my head. Nobody can reproduce the sound of a recording in their mind without listening to a tape/record/cd/file of it.

How is your speech being constrained by a record label anyways? A recording of a performance belongs to the creators of that recording. You don't have the right to reproduce it without paying them. That's that. It has nothing to do with your speech and everything to do with people in the entertainment industry getting paid for their work.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#306

Post by flycaliguy »

cookiecaper wrote: post #219
bogomipz wrote: post #155

>"In November 2014, SoundCloud closed a deal with Warner Music Group, giving the label an undisclosed cut of revenue from ads, a 3%–5% stake in the company and protection against past copyright infringement from the label." This sounds like terms dictated by the Mob. It's quite telling that the deal also conferred ownership on a content holder in order to be able to license and pay handsomely for their content. This…

>This sounds like terms dictated by the Mob. The simple fact is that copyright protections are far too strong. The copyright cartel doesn't need a shady network of 400 pound men to enforce their schemes; they just use the U.S. Attorney's office instead. How many bright technical entrepreneurs have been crushed by rent-seekers milking the royalties out of a 40-year-old track? Copyright has completely lost the plot. We…

Can you actually tell me about a bright technical entrepreneur who has been crushed? Why did they form a business distributing somebody else's product if they couldn't pay for it?

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#307

Post by ahmedfromtunis »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #298
untilHellbanned wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music marketing isn't equally distributed.

It's not just the marketing. With enough VC funding a startup could build an equivalent or better marketing apparatus. The Big entertainment companies have a monopoly on key distribution channels: radio, tv, in-store, stadium shows etc. The succesful startup will be the one that builds an entirely new distribution channel for musical acts.

SoundCloud was so close to be that startup.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#309

Post by dilemma »

skewart wrote: post #153
cupcakestand wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best comment in the thread. It shows that one of SoundCloud's key problem is an oligopolostic industry they are dealing with.

I'm not so sure that's true. Their key problem is that they didn't understand how much value there is in up-and-coming, amateur, and underground music. The record labels only have power when it comes to their catalogue. SoundCloud could have truly disrupted the labels by providing an alternative way to promote, monetize, and discover music. But they somehow got off that track.

SoundCloud should be a music publisher - a record label.

Re: SoundCloud's Collapse

#310

Post by dilemma »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #260
cupcakestand wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How should this work? Once somebody is trending on such platforms, labels will come, give them tons of money, a contract and take over. And take them away from these platforms as well.

Great. They leave, push their listeners over on the younger version of them. It's like sailing... Every bit of air that hits your sail will end up behind you, dispersed. That doesn't mean your boat will stop. You travel by charting a course where you stay ahead of a pressure differential. Same in music. You need to find a source of new artists that will continually replenish you as you lose artists to platforms that…

This is exactly why SoundCloud should be a publisher. To take advantage of the gems their platform unearths.
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