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PRS for Music, a UK performing rights organization, at the end of last month sued SoundCloud for copyright infringement on behalf of its members. The action may prove a decisive moment for the Berlin-based streaming service. Those responses were naturally a bit guarded, as the two are actively engaged in legal action. Now, technically, your own upload just infringed your own copyright, if PRS claims that it needed a performing royalty.
By the way, even SoundCloud explains that it is possible to infringe your own copyright. From their copyright case:. Were you signed to a record label when you recorded the track? Do you have a publishing deal? Are you a member of a performing rights organization or collecting society? Have you licensed your track to anyone else? After careful consideration, and following five years of unsuccessful negotiations , we now find ourselves in a situation where we have no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against the online music service SoundCloud.
SoundCloud actively promotes and shares music. Launched in , the service now has more than m unique listeners per month. Unfortunately, the organisation continues to deny it needs a PRS for Music licence for its existing service available in the UK and Europe, meaning it is not remunerating our members when their music is streamed by the SoundCloud platform.
It has been a difficult decision to begin legal action against SoundCloud but one we firmly believe is in the best, long-term interests of our membership. This is because it is important we establish the principle that a licence is required when services make available music to users.
Therefore we now have no choice but to pursue the issue through the courts. SoundCloud decided to respond to our claim by informing us that it had removed posts.
We launched our Streamfair campaign in June to raise awareness of this issue and highlight how music creators need to be properly remunerated from streaming. The streaming market cannot fairly develop unless this happens. We remain hopeful that this matter can be resolved without the need for extended litigation.
Members will appreciate that this is now a legal matter and our ability to communicate around it is therefore limited by the legal process. However, we will try to share information and updates whenever we can. And it seems to be fairly random: The traditional music stakeholders — even the ones that may represent you — continue to argue for licensing as the panacea for streaming.
But as I said, the entire licensing model is complex. That is, there are two points with which you might disagree. Performing rights organizations would like you to believe the answer is yes. I think that would almost certainly shutter the entire site overnight, which could have a devastating impact on artists and labels. The thing is, if PRS did shut down SoundCloud, while it would prove a point, it would both anger members who use the service and by definition would eliminate royalties on hundreds of millions of future plays.
I think the key is, PRS and the labels really need SoundCloud as a big entity for licensing to work at all. See also their deal with Spotify. This sort of homogenization of streaming makes the job of licensing far easier. It is regrettable that PRS appears to be following this course of action in the midst of an active commercial negotiation with SoundCloud.
We believe this approach does not serve the best interests of any of the parties involved, in particular the members of the PRS, many of whom are active users of our platform and who rely on it to share their work and communicate with their fanbase.
SoundCloud is a platform by creators, for creators. No one in the world is doing more to enable creators to build and connect with their audience while protecting the rights of creators, including PRS members. We are working hard to create a platform where all creators can be paid for their work, and already have deals in place with thousands of copyright owners, including record labels, publishers and independent artists.
Whose works does this suit cover? I know there is a representative list, but is the case built around all PRS-represented music? PRS recently announced a multi-territory deal with Spotify Europe. How are those royalties calculated? This is some sort of fixed statutory rate per play? There is no statutory licensing rate in the UK, although the Copyright Tribunal was established to adjudicate licensing disputes in the UK between copyright owners incl. In relation to Spotify, this is a bespoke negotiated licence and as such the terms are confidential.
But notice — PRS want you to believe that licensing is the way to go. But the deals on which you depend are completely confidential. And the entire system at this point depends on one-by-one, independent negotiations.
What would you say to those artists when they find that this use on SoundCloud is being targeted by PRS? Or do you believe those artists are not acting in their own self-interest when they upload music in this way?
When a writer or publisher becomes a member of the Performing Right Society, they assign certain rights to their works over for us to administer. Licensing protects the interests of all of our members, very many of whom are having their content used by SoundCloud without their permission, expressed or otherwise. Our members all agree that they should be paid to have their content used by third parties and sometimes the achievement of this goal means having to make difficult decisions for the collective good.
We understand that many of our members use and appreciate the service provided by SoundCloud. At PRS for Music we can also see the value that a service like SoundCloud could add to the market if it were operating with proper licensing.
But as things stand, our members receive nothing for their content being consumed on SoundCloud. There are a couple of important points they make in response. One, as I said, if this were just creators uploading their own music, it would be one thing.
The primary aim is to move SoundCloud towards having a fully licensed service that fairly pays our members when their music is used on the service. Now, it also made sense to talk to SoundCloud. Eric Wahlforss, who also spoke on a panel I hosted this summer , responded to those issues.
Am I correct in understanding that monetization — and presumably, revenue that would impact licensing music — is going to be based on some combination of subscription and advertising revenue? On SoundCloud enables our Premier Partners to monetise their content through advertising, and to earn a share of the resulting revenue.
Are there advertisers onboard that you can talk about? These partnerships have helped artists shine an additional spotlight on their work, while getting paid in the process. That makes them very different from services like Spotify, which are really mostly about consumption. Is there any updated timeline as far as rolling out On SoundCloud to more users? We started with 20 select partners representing 2, labels at launch, and have now grown to over , representing over 25, labels, many of whom are independents.
Our goal remains to provide monetization opportunities for all creators on the platform. And that also shows some overlap between the stakes of labels and performing rights organizations.
Is providing paid listener subscriptions still on the table? We will be launching listener subscriptions in the future. Our subscription philosophy is about delivering subscribers additional functionality, and the free tier will continue to be a core part of our platform for creators and listeners in a way that is complementary to our subscription services.
Let me be perfectly frank: I think as creators, we want this to work out. First, PRS has a point. Without getting into the fine points about which licenses work in which localities internationally, SoundCloud simply has to do a better job licensing the music on its site — like, licensing it at all, in most cases.
I think we should have a debate about what sort of copyright framework makes sense, and whether licensing is really a model that works for artists. I know the people who believe that it does work are often very open to talking about that, so this can be a vigorous and valuable debate. But we can only have that discussion if the basis of copyright law remains enforceable and while this may seem near-impossible enforceable internationally.
Even those of us who are advocates of open source licensing or Creative Commons licensing depend on copyright law as a foundation. Labels depend on streams as a window to actually selling music direct; artists rely on data from listeners and exposure and the ability to promote events and sell tickets. These activities very often far outweigh royalty checks in terms of actual monetary value.
If you break SoundCloud, you may well break a lot of the way music is working for artists right now. This is one to watch. I think it will remain important to see how the SoundCloud case unfolds, because it has implications far beyond the service.
And we should also talk about alternatives to SoundCloud that do have licensing in place, for no other reason that I think no single service can serve everyone. YouTube dwarfs Vimeo, on the video side, but a lot of very specific creative niches find Vimeo invaluable. Peter Kirn - September 18, From their copyright case: Dear Member, PRS for Music begins legal action against SoundCloud After careful consideration, and following five years of unsuccessful negotiations , we now find ourselves in a situation where we have no alternative but to commence legal proceedings against the online music service SoundCloud.
There are already several points here to digest: Our legal action covers all PRS for Music member repertoire. Conclusions Let me be perfectly frank: Previous post Silk is a giant string instrument that makes Bitcoin into music. Next post What it means that the MeeBlip synth is open source hardware.