Soundcloud -- BEWARE

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Yes, I'm sure I read this and yet I couldn't understand why every man and his dog has a presence on Soundcloud. And just like a sheep I did as so many others have and uploaded but since have had that nagging feeling that I shouldn't have. I look forward to this discussion..

Does anyone know of a alternative solution to Soundcloud? I'd prefer not having the fruits of my labours used without my expressed consent.

Wow! That's news to me. I'm curious if that's a new policy or their original terms and conditions; either way I'm removing my music. Thanks for sharing the info.

dcoscina said:

I'd prefer not having the fruits of my labours used without my expressed consent.

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It's not just "used," David, it's used -- for free. And without notice, as far as I can see -- there is no clear obligation to notify the copyright holder (and by the way, the "copyright holder" appears to be just about anyone who accesses Soundcloud, for practical purposes). I am no lawyer but based on how I read this, someone could, it appears, write an entire score based on your theme (derivative work) without notice or payment; or simply use it in a film without paying you.

It's there in black and off white.

I vaguely remember getting an email from them with a change of TOC, maybe a year ago? I guess the way forward is not to put your best work there, just a taster.

JohnG said:

It's not just "used," David, it's used -- for free. And without notice, as far as I can see -- there is no clear obligation to notify the copyright holder (and by the way, the "copyright holder" appears to be just about anyone who accesses Soundcloud, for practical purposes). I am no lawyer but based on how I read this, someone could, it appears, write an entire score based on your theme (derivative work) without notice or payment; or simply use it in a film without paying you.

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That's what I was afraid of.

I jumped to http://www.octave.is (octave.is) for easy and proffesional sharing and bandcamp for a public front and/or commercial stuff.

Bandcamp terms states as follows:

Am I signing over the rights to my music, home and firstborn? No. The only rights we take are the obvious ones we need to run the service. For example, the right to host the music you upload, stream and sell it on your behalf, display whatever lyrics and artwork you put on the site, and so on.

I have the feeling soundcloud terms is much the same actually, but they have commercialized them selfs beyond my liking and understanding.

Soundcloud never garnered any paying business for me, just added followers who can listen to all our stuff for free- which in principle always irked me- musicians pay for all the benefits of SoundCloud and music listening public can hear for free. That's a bit fucked up. Then again, humans will take the path of least resistance and who would bother to pay to listen to music when half the free worlds believes they are entitled to art for free.

Bandcamp is the way forward. Thanks for posting this. Bad.

I never used it much, but I just deleted my Soundcloud account all the same. If nothing else, it's one more small voice in protest.

So if you're a film maker you could theoretically throw into your film any track on Soundcloud?

tack said:

I never used it much, but I just deleted my Soundcloud account all the same. If nothing else, it's one more small voice in protest.

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Yeah the unfortunate thing is that SoundCloud will never go down until a similar platform comes to challenge it. And hopefully their challenger won't succumb to the gradual progress from promoting the artists to becoming just another corporate entity.

Uh... then why are the still tons of big name artists with record contracts who post their full songs to SoundCloud?

Surely it can't be legal for anyone to steal their songs just because it's on SoundCloud?

I'm no lawyer, but the rest of the paragraph delimits the actual ways in which these usages are permitted. Here is the remainder of the pertinent section: (Note that the paragraph does not actually conclude here - the rest of it limits the use of trade and service marks by end users...)

"By uploading Your Content to the Platform, you also grant a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, license to other users of the Platform, and to operators and users of any other websites, apps and/or platforms to which Your Content has been shared or embedded using the Services (“Linked Services”), to use, copy, listen to offline, repost, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, adapt, prepare derivative works of, compile, make available and otherwise communicate to the public, Your Content utilizing the features of the Platform from time to time, and within the parameters set by you using the Services. You can limit and restrict the availability of certain of Your Content to other users of the Platform, and to users of Linked Services, at any time using the permissions tab in the track edit section for each sound you upload, subject to the provisions of the Disclaimer section below."

(Bold in the second half of the paragraph added by me)

There are in effect three sections to this paragraph - the first, which lists the license which is being granted and to whom, second, the things which one can do with that license (i.e., use, copy, etc.), and the third, which begins with "Your content utilizing" which limits the application of that license to the parameters that you as content provider have set, and that these activities must exist within the context of 'utilizing the features of the Platform." Unless these film makers are using exclusively Soundcloud to make films, then there is absolutely zero license granted to steal anything from that paragraph in full.

There is also this paragraph which concludes the section on the Grant of License which precludes the uses being discussed in this thread outside of the platform:

"Any Content other than Your Content is the property of the relevant Uploader, and is or may be subject to copyright, trademark rights or other intellectual property or proprietary rights. Such Content may not be downloaded, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, re-uploaded, republished, displayed, sold, licensed, made available or otherwise communicated to the public or exploited for any purposes except via the features of the Platform from time to time and within the parameters set by the Uploader on the Platform or with the express written consent of the Uploader. Where you repost another user’s Content, or include another user’s Content in a playlist or station or where you listen to another user’s Content offline, you acquire no ownership rights whatsoever in that Content. Subject to the rights expressly granted in this section, all rights in Content are reserved to the relevant Uploader."

I would agree - always read the terms carefully. But also be sure to read them in full, and without stopping your reading of the terms before you've actually reached the end of the license being granted. It's the difference between "I want to kill everyone who tries to kill me" and "I want to kill everyone."

Thank you for sharing this information.

JohnG said:

By uploading Your Content to the Platform, you also grant a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, license to other users of the Platform, and to operators and users of any other websites, apps and/or platforms to which Your Content has been shared or embedded using the Services (“Linked Services”), to use, copy, listen to offline, repost, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, adapt, prepare derivative works of, compile, make available and otherwise communicate to the public

Read their terms of use very carefully and consider whether you want to agree to them before posting.

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Thanks for sharing. Bloody awful!

bbunker said:

"By uploading Your Content to the Platform, you also grant a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, license to other users of the Platform, and to operators and users of any other websites, apps and/or platforms to which Your Content has been shared or embedded using the Services (“Linked Services”), to use, copy, listen to offline, repost, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, adapt, prepare derivative works of, compile, make available and otherwise communicate to the public, Your Content utilizing the features of the Platform from time to time, and within the parameters set by you using the Services.

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What's interesting about that for me is that both here and on Soundcloud's site, because the "Your" in "Your Content" is capitalized, my brain erroneously interpreted the preceding comma as a period, which, as you say, rather significantly changes the meaning. That makes "Your Content utilizing ..." a grammatically incorrect sentence fragment, so that failed to parse when read. "Your Content" makes perfect sense as a predefined term in the context of the agreement, of course. Nothing unusual about the language, just a basic interpretation failure.

So yes, I regret having behaved rather unskeptically here.

Not that I will miss my Soundcloud account. If I were the producer of much content, I would still much rather host it myself, where I have the control, and don't need to worry about a third party suddenly changing the terms of service on me.

I think you should insert a repeating audio watermark on any tracks you upload there like Royalty Free libraries do...

InLight-Tone said:

I think you should insert a repeating audio watermark on any tracks you upload there like Royalty Free libraries do...

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*Clicks play*

"Ooooo this track sounds kinda nice! Loving the vibes."

"Audiojungle"

"FUUUUUUU"