Back in July, we told you that SoundCloud is looking to finalize licensing deals w/ major labels. Looks like they got one of them to bite. According to the folks over at WSJ, Warner Music Group is the 1st to support SoundCloud’s future endeavors. They got Warner on-board by promising a premium subscription service to offer to their users by early next year while the free version would still remain. The company will pay Warner label royalties whenever one of their songs are played on the service. The label will also get compensated if one of their songs is cut up and utilized in mixes.
This definitely makes sense as the music industry model represents a time that hasn’t been around in over a decade. Actual album sales are in decline as even iTunes sales aren’t what they used to be. Streaming services is now the new thing that labels have been attaching themselves to. I am curious to see what features a paid version of SoundCloud would offer.
