Who didn’t see this coming from SoundCloud? SoundCloud has launched its very own subscription service. For $9.99 a month, U.S.-based music lovers can listen to over 100 million tracks, as well as, listen ad-free. SoundCloud Go has been able to amass 170 million users worldwide. Users can post and listen to a wide variety of musical forms (i.e. radio shows, remixes, sets, mashup, etc). This is cool, but, SoundCloud Go is going to face the ongoing debate on how artists are rightfully paid through streaming services. Billboard, for instance, asked “Imagine someone making an hour-long mix which samples or references 60-plus songs throughout. Now multiply that by 5 or 50 million. Who’s going to track that down?” This may become a huge headache for SoundCloud Go if heir internal system isn’t oiled properly. Another problem is turning users into paying customers. SoundCloud’s founder, Swedes Alexander Ljung tells Billboard that “artist control” and the practice of “windowing” is what will separate them from other subscription services. “Now we have two portions,” says Ljung, “ads and subscriptions. So the creator has the choice what to put where. Like we’ve always done, we want to give artists control. You could imagine a case where superstar x has a brand new album, one track in free and have that run across the entire internet, generating ad revenue and promotion… and put the rest of the album behind the paywall.” Read more over at Billboard… Photo Credit: DigitalMusicNews/SoundCloud
