

Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account - chippy
http://doandroidsdance.com/features/soundcloud-boldly-releases-new-app-allows-universal-flag-account-quietly-announces-data-mining-one-month/
The original article is from here: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;doandroidsdance.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;soundcloud-boldly-releases-new-app-allows-universal-flag-account-quietly-announces-data-mining-one-month&#x2F;  June 27
======
amckenna
The part that really gets me is that Universal isn't even trying to help
people "do the right thing". In the email from Greg Morris he states:

 _" The problem I'm having is the ambiguity of the feedback. For example, on
the first strike you just said "Universal Music" said I used one of their
tunes. The set started with an Ellie Golding song which I thought was the
problem. So I removed that and re-uploaded. It was then taken down again.
You're not even telling me which songs are infringing."_

That is infuriating. He is trying to oblige to the request to remove a
copyrighted song, but Universal isn't even telling him how he is in violation.

~~~
anigbrowl
Oh boo hoo. He's promoting his own internet radio show, it's up to him to work
out clearances. He asks what basis they have for doing it, like choice of law
etc., well read the ToS, that's why it's there. 'Other people do it too!' is
about the most juvenile argument there is, and the fact that they haven't
experienced problems yet is neither here nor there. Maybe Universal hasn't got
around to yanking stuff from them yet, maybe they have proper clearances or
pay ASCAP feees, or maybe Universal/Soundcloud is enforcing their copyright
arbitrarily...which they're perfectly entitled to do as a private entity.
Equal treatment under law only applies to the government, unless you can show
you're being discriminated against as a member of a protected class.

So his problem is he doesn't know which song(s) is/are infringing? Take your
tracklisting and check it against discogs.com or some other music publishing
database, and see which songs were published by Universal Music. Maybe 30
minutes of work for a 1 hour show, tops. The responsibility to check
clearances does lie with the person who wants to use a copyrighted work.

Edit: I realize this is an unpopular view, but if you're downvoting I invite
you to spell out what you think is wrong about it. Every
magazine/website/course aimed at budding record producers/DJs/musicians
provides coverage of copyright and licensing issues, to help their readership
collect what is owed to them as much as to avoid infringement. There is no way
you can be an aspiring or actual professional in the music industry for any
significant length of time and not be aware of your basic obligations in this
area.

~~~
Dylan16807
In an actual legal case it is your right to be told exactly what you are
charged with. Universal is taking actions _based_ on copyright law but
_outside_ the legal system and refusing to be specific. This is allowed
behavior but it is extremely distasteful.

It is not acceptable to mistreat someone because they are doing 'something'
wrong.

~~~
anigbrowl
In an actual legal case you'd also be liable for damages. I agree it's
unhelpful of Universal to just yank the material without providing feedback on
what, exactly, infringed their copyright, but the fact remains that the
responsibility for copyright clearance lies with the person who wants to copy
the work, not the rightsholder.

I agree it's distasteful, but given that Greg seems to be well-established
professionally there's no way he doesn't know this. It's rather absurd to see
him accusing SoundCloud of 'stealing' his subscription fee - ie complaining
about the loss of his property interest in his SC account - while at the same
time thinking he can help himself to all the raw material, ie other people's
published music.

Yes, it's unfair that broadcast radio stations get all their music for free by
default, while internet DJs don't, legally. They get that because they banded
together and _negotiated_ for those rights. _That 's_ the solution:
collaborate with other internet radio DJs and draft a blanket license
agreement for noncommercial reproduction, then shop it to labels.

------
ElectronicSleep
I have just had this very issue directly as an electronic music producer.

Was flagged for my own original music NOT on a remix or anything that
contained samples but an original jam I made with some classic Roland
hardware; Roland SH-101, TR-909, and TR-606! Seems the algorithm they use to
flag has many flaws and is automated with no one at the wheel to look at
individual cases.

Not sure where soundcloud is going with this, because I pay for the service
and replied to them to fix and have heard nothing in over a month.

Moved my song over to mixcloud. I am creating a music app for musicians called
Memory Echo if anyone is interested in working together on something different
but similar for musicians that are not signed.

Knew this day would come just didn't know when.

Cheers! Electronic Sleep

~~~
anigbrowl
That's a much more legit complaint than the one in the source article, and as
an electronic musician myself I can see how that would happen. Sadly Mixcloud
has problems of its own, eg this, which I posted here the other day:
[http://support.mixcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1595564...](http://support.mixcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1595564-us-
licensing-seeking-rules)

~~~
mercnet
I was so confused on what type of license would prevent me seeking a track.
Luckily I can just google "download from mixcloud" and problem goes away.

------
Ryanmf
It's been really interesting over the last 24 hours or so to watch the
reaction from Joe Kay[0], whose label/collective Soulection[1] has shared
hundreds of hours of mixes and dozens of original tracks and remixes on
Soundcloud[2], and to an extent (at least initially) built their following on
the site (not to take anything away from the impact performances, etc. have
had on their growing popularity), but were always at high risk of this sort of
takedown due to remixes of popular rap/r&b tracks.

One of my initial takeaways from this development is that while Soulection may
not have come to exist without Soundcloud, the "next Soulection" will almost
certainly take root anywhere _but_ Soundcloud.

It's a shame.

[0] [https://twitter.com/J0EKAY](https://twitter.com/J0EKAY)

[1] [http://soulection.com](http://soulection.com)

[2] [https://soundcloud.com/soulection](https://soundcloud.com/soulection)

~~~
kefs
Soulection originally uploaded their shows to MixCloud, but made the move to
SoundCloud about a year back. :(

[http://www.mixcloud.com/soulection/](http://www.mixcloud.com/soulection/)

..if any HNers enjoy these tunes, the live show is every Saturday at 10am pst
on rinse.fm.

~~~
Ryanmf
Apparently they've had similar issues on Mixcloud:

[https://twitter.com/J0EKAY/status/484097294598275072](https://twitter.com/J0EKAY/status/484097294598275072)

And even if hip hop/trap/neo-soul/etc aren't your style, if you're into any
electronic music at all there's probably something for you on Rinse.fm
(unfortunately they're more an internet radio station than a platform like
Soundcloud, not exactly apples to apples from a user perspective).

~~~
philers
If you're interested in the history of Rinse.fm, check out this article:

[http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/27/rinse-fm-
geeneu...](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/27/rinse-fm-geeneus)

Real Pirate radio for the last twenty years.

~~~
nikatwork
Rinse has an FM license now, so they've gone from pirate to legit. It was
funny listening to the DJs trying to curb their swearing (50 pound fine per
naughty word) in the weeks after they were licensed.

------
polemic
So SoundCloud users had a good run, but now the popularity of the service
reached critical mass and raised the ire of the labels so they're knuckling
under like every other provider. SoundCloud (sensibly) doesn't want the burden
of dealing with the massive copyright infringement by it's users and
outsources the job to the owners of the tracks.

Now I get that it sucks that you don't get explicit explanations of what
infringed, and I worry hugely about their power to supress content that they
actually do not own, but:

1\. Stop pretending that you should get a free ride because you're promoting
the artist. If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from
awesome bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to
break the stranglehold.

2\. Don't rage at the service that provides a great product to producers of
real, original content, just because you've repurposed the platform to promote
your infringing mix.

~~~
kalleboo
> If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from awesome
> bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to break the
> stranglehold.

This. If you get a promo from an artist, ask them, "Is this under copyright
with a label? Sorry, in that case I can't play it."

~~~
anigbrowl
Actually the correct response would be 'can you give me a release to play it.'
Everything is under copyright with someone, refusing to deal with any labels
whatsoever just means punishing any artist that dares enter into a publishing
relationship with someone else.

~~~
kalleboo
Even if you get a separate license on the side, Universal will still take your
music down from SoundCloud. Just like how news services take down public
domain NASA video from YouTube. They have a special direct relationship that
doesn't follow DMCA or any other rules.

------
dublinben
Farewell Soundcloud. It was nice while things lasted.

~~~
rsync
Yes,it really was. I am an old, classic, get off my lawn style person who
never signed up for twitter or Facebook and still uses a dumbphone. But
somehow I got onto SC and discovered a lot of great music there, which has led
to a few hundred dollars of amazon purchases.

So it is something special, and I hate to see them mucking around with it ...

~~~
miopa
You shoud check [http://mycloudplayers.com](http://mycloudplayers.com), it is
built over SoundCloud and has some amazing features for discovering new music
based on the favorites tracks of the people you follow.

------
conatus
I run a record label (Records On Ribs) and to be fair, SoundCloud have always
scanned files for potential copyright infringement and taken files down when
they have found it to be the case. The difference is that normally there is an
appeals process with a nice backend. It is a little frustrating though because
the automated service flags music we own the copyright for (as well as being
Creative Commons) and we have to go through the whole process again. The lack
of appeals here is the really worrying development.

------
politician
Why have we, as a society, become OK with handing over policing power to
corporations unrestrained by due process? For example, by using sites like
Soundcloud. Is it the lack of civics education in high school?

~~~
ProAm
> _Why have we, as a society, become OK with handing over policing power to
> corporations unrestrained by due process?_

These companies do not care about due process, they care about the bottom line
of making a dollar at the end of the day. Soundcloud determined it is much
less expensive for them to go this route than be sued by Universal. Every
company follows this practice as for they are serving their best interest.

As a consumer your hope is that their best interest and your best interest
share the inside of a Venn diagram.

~~~
beedogs
> Soundcloud determined it is much less expensive for them to go this route
> than be sued by Universal.

Which is sad, because Soundcloud would win in court, as they'd have no problem
proving that the site doesn't exist primarily to help its users infringe
copyrights owned by Universal.

~~~
BasDirks
Is it that simple?

------
torbit
First, that is a low blow linking to others doing it. They know, or haven't
got to them yet. Websites like Etsy do the same on license content. Two, they
choose you be set an example. Three, I always thought of Soundcloud the Vimeo
of music. If it is an artisans music website, upload your own creations.

Unfortunately for soundcloud, aren't they killing their main userbase? DJ's
mixing mainstream songs.

~~~
thedaniel
> First, that is a low blow linking to others doing it.

I thought the same thing at first, but the users that are linked to are all
big, big names that get millions of plays on Soundcloud that will never get
takedowns, whether they have clearances or not. It's more like saying "why are
you hassling me for my $10 unpaid fine when you don't care about these
corporations' $100,000 unpaid fines" than it is about narcing on the
competition.

------
ChrisAntaki
The one looming question is, does Universal have access to spectrum analysis
products of tracks, or the actual sounds themselves? If they have access to
the actual sounds, they'll be able to harvest song ideas from private tracks.
No bueno.

~~~
conatus
Judging by my above comment, probably spectrum analysis.

------
joshdance
Lack of appeals and lack of information make this a real problem. Soundcloud
needs to address this to keep the artists from going elsewhere.

------
ahaefner
Also their interface for tracking plays has gotten significantly worse. And
you have to pay extra to get most of the same information you get for free
from youtube.

~~~
squeaky-clean
>And you have to pay extra to get most of the same information you get for
free from youtube.

Well Youtube has advertisements, and soundcloud doesn't. Someone is still
paying for you to get that information, it's just not you, on youtube. I do
agree that their interface has gotten worse, though. Especially for tracking.

------
feronull
oh that's why some DJ's that I follow are moving to mixcloud

~~~
abuddy
I think something similar will happen to Mixcloud too.

See U.S. licensing rules:
[http://support.mixcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1595564](http://support.mixcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1595564)

~~~
spyder
Then comes another service... The circle of life...

~~~
dublinben
Those are actually really permissive terms, and will likely keep Mixcloud in
the clear. They do need to cover the cost of the licenses, but they're not
operating illegally like Soundcloud was.

------
ScUnlimitedUser
Citing the Terms of Soundcloud: "SoundCloud may assign its rights and (where
permissible by law) its obligations under this Agreement, in whole or in part,
to any third party at any time without notice, including without limitation,
to any person or entity acquiring all or substantially all of the assets or
business of SoundCloud."

This is embarassing. I use a number of payed accounts, with original content
only, but sometimes you should rethink whom you give your money, and if you
still can trust them. I don't want any major label - and nobody - to shoot me
in the back out of nowhere.

I'm German, the SC offices are two streets from where I sit now. I have some
doubt if their Terms apply to German law in all the details. Unfortunately,
I'm no lawyer.

------
tom3k
I'm actually working on a service which sits on top of SoundCloud. It's still
in its infancy, but I'd love to hear what people think of the concept; the
service aims to help musicians and photographers expose their content to a
wider audience, and on the flip side, allows you to sit back and listen to a
playlist of music whilst enjoying a beautiful photo slide show. The playlists
are tailored to a user's mood, and you're able to filter the music based on
genre. The website's voliyo.com, and if anyone's interested in signing up to
the beta as a photographer or musician, feel free to message me for an invite
code!

------
return0
My understanding is that soundcloud is popular with (and funded by) musicians
who post original music. Why should we all be so upset about this?

~~~
jonknee
Because you or I don't have a way to flag Universal's account? It seems odd
that a third party has direct control over your Soundcloud account (which you
may have paid for) without any recourse.

~~~
akira2501
That's the inherent risk of using a third party to host "your account" on a
proprietary system. I have sympathy for all these artists, I truly do, but
what were they expecting?

------
unknownian
Somewhat offtopic, but why is there an obsession with music discovery
services? Soundcloud has its own niche in terms of sharing and usage, but
other services like 8tracks and Slacker seem rather unnecessary. Is it that
hard to discover new music on one's own?

~~~
kingnight
8tracks is user created playlists right? Why wouldn't that be useful — that's
generally the best way to find music in a lot situations.

Slacker is internet radio I think and more run of the mill so not sure for
that one.

~~~
unknownian
Because the user-created playlists seem rather low-quality. Half the "indie"
playlists appear to have bland mainstream radio music. Maybe I'm not the
target audience for these apps, but friends, 4chan, Pitchfork and Spotify seem
to be the right combination for me.

------
CWuestefeld
The first part of this post is rather lame. In his complaining about putative
tracking, he quotes their new policy. This policy says that they're collecting
non-identifying info that can be opted out of, and if you sign in with
Facebook or Google, they'll take note of your gender.

None of these things they're declaring gives them the ability to track who you
are, or correlate it to what you're doing.

------
snake_plissken
How are mixes subject to take-downs? Shouldn't they be protected since they
are pre-recorded and thus protected by exceptions to public performance
rights?

------
paromi
i use [http://mp3monkey.net](http://mp3monkey.net)

------
kodisha
Or, you can listen to real, really great music from underground labels on SC
and never worry about Universal.

Kappa.

~~~
delinka
Sounds to me like Universal has blanket permission to harass anyone,
regardless how "underground" they are. Universal doesn't like your brand of
competition? They'll just flag you for infringement.

------
gr3yh47
i recommend 8tracks.com

------
asinno
just wen i started lovin this app

------
chippy
Original article from a couple of days ago
[http://doandroidsdance.com/features/soundcloud-boldly-
releas...](http://doandroidsdance.com/features/soundcloud-boldly-releases-new-
app-allows-universal-flag-account-quietly-announces-data-mining-one-month/)

"SoundCloud seems to have given Universal the keys to the car within the last
month, and is allowing the media giant full access to flag accounts’ records
without any communication whatsoever with SoundCloud. "

~~~
dang
Thanks. We changed the url from
[http://www.dancingastronaut.com/2014/07/soundcloud-
continues...](http://www.dancingastronaut.com/2014/07/soundcloud-continues-
push-boundaries-privacy-policies-enables-universal-screen-monitor-terminate-
accounts/).

Btw, stories can't have both urls and text, so your submission text was lost.
We're going to fix that so a message comes up when users do it.

~~~
eropple
Maybe the ability to have a seed post to go along with the link might be a
feature worth evaluating?

~~~
dang
You can do that now by posting a comment to the thread. I realize that's not
exactly what you mean, but (a) it's close, (b) we're biased in favor of
reusing existing features wherever possible, and (c) I'm not convinced that
the submitter's comment should be privileged over other users', other than by
being first to appear. What chippy wrote was fine, but that would not always
be the case.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
I don't think the submitter's comment needs to be privileged. But it would be
nice if both text and url are entered then the system just magically turns
that text into a comment from the submitter. It would just save the submitter
a step. I'll refrain from the typical dev comment about how it should be easy
to do in the code. It probably isn't _that_ easy. But probably not that hard
either. :)

~~~
dang
Ah, clever. That's either a really simple "why didn't I think of that" idea,
or it's what people have been saying all along and I didn't get it.

Will think about this and maybe look at relevant historical data.

------
notastartup
I use [http://samurai.fm](http://samurai.fm) now for my funk, disco,
electronic needs.

------
bphogan
I don't understand the problem, I guess. You can't profit from other people's
copyrighted material without their permission. That's just how copyright
works. And they can grant or deny that parmission.

Get a license or use something else. And don't complain that they're being
"unfair" by taking your stuff down and not telling you what infringed. If you
didn't upload/sample/perform other people's stuff, you wouldn't need to worry
about what songs were infringing.

Get your samples cleared. After having to get written permission from Twitter,
Facebook, Amazon, and other services to use screenshots of their web pages in
my books, this doesn't surprise me in the least. Fair use is a defense, not a
right.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Building upon the cultural contributions of our past is how all of human
civilization was built. Until the late twentieth century. Disney (for
instance) strips our culture like a jackal, yet buys senators (such as Ernest
Frederick "Fritz" Hollings) to subvert the law so they can keep it a one-way
flow. To allow a few to subvert all of human existence for their personal gain
is obscene.

~~~
bphogan
I understand that's how culture works. But I'm talking about the fact that
because of Disney, this is now how it works, and it should not be surprising
that this is happening.

There's a big difference between "how it should be" and "how it actually is."

~~~
CapitalistCartr
I agree completely, there is a big difference between how it should be and how
it actually is. But its obvious that Disney's vision of reality isn't how it
works. Culture works by sharing, still. How it will work going forward is up
in the air yet; we can still control the outcome by not giving in.

