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»Fairer and more transparent«: SoundCloud
Photo: LIONEL BONAVENTURE / AFP
The music streaming service SoundCloud wants to pay artists on its platform in the future primarily based on the number of their followers.
90 percent of the license fees distributed would then be distributed according to the taste of 90 percent of the users - and not, as before, by 40 percent of the users.
With the switch, a musician with 124,000 SoundCloud followers could increase her monthly fee income from $ 120 to $ 600 (about 500 euros), the company said.
Such a fee model is "fairer and more transparent" for emerging and independent artists.
The new billing method should start on April 1st.
Most streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer or Apple pay the artists from a large pot, which flows into subscription fees and advertising income.
Megastars get a large part of the money, only crumbs remain for unknown artists.
Conversely, the fans cannot choose which music to support financially.
According to a study by the French music center, ten percent of Spotify and Deezer revenues go to the ten most popular artists.
30 million creative people are at SoundCloud
The head of SoundCloud, Michael Weissman, explained that the change that has now been announced is what many in the music business have wanted "for years".
SoundCloud can better support independent artists.
A consequence of the change is also a greater diversity of the music.
SoundCloud was founded in Berlin in 2007.
More than 250 million pieces by around 30 million artists from all over the world can be heard on the platform.
In 2019 the platform had around 175 million users.
According to the company, it stands for “sharing music in social networks, for direct contact with artists, for discovering new tracks, demos, podcasts and more”.
Music and audio creators used the platform both to present their content to an international audience and earn money with it, as well as to receive detailed statistics and feedback from the SoundCloud community.
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