What is going on with SoundCloud?(factmag.com)
factmag.com
What is going on with SoundCloud?
http://www.factmag.com/2015/08/14/what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-soundcloud/
70 comments
It's a shame, really. SoundCloud used to be good service for independent musicians, and I really liked the social aspects of it and the integration into Ableton. But next thing you know, you read about deals with Warner and 100M funding and whatnot. Let's just hope Bandcamp keeps its focus; it's currently my favourite site for discovering new music.
SoundCloud's take-down algorithms are only targeting musicians who rely on sampling copyrighted works. This, clearly, is a large chunk of SoundCloud's current user base but I honestly think this will result in a net increase in quality.
I made a completely sample free demo song for a friend to jam to and got stopped by the algorithm. I was referred to a song that was from a musical number with lots of chord and time changes. My sound was a single verse that was straight-ahead 4 chord rock. So while I wasn't hit with a takedown notice, I was prevented from posting until someone could listen to both songs (also it was really hard to listen to the song they quoted due to it's rarity).
This is a great example of how badly configured these systems are and how ultimately, they do more harm than good. It also brings up an interesting question. After a couple hundred years of recorded music, eventually everything will have some historical basis. If copyright law is to be enforced this harshly, then how do new works get created without hitting some automated censor firewall?
The elephant in the room, of course, is how strong copyright laws are. Unfortunately, Congress has shown little interest in reforming them.
The elephant in the room, of course, is how strong copyright laws are. Unfortunately, Congress has shown little interest in reforming them.
> Paradoxically, the takedowns are often hurting the artists that they’re meant to be protecting. On August 12, London DJ Plastician had a track he produced, owned and released on his own label blocked by SoundCloud’s copyright detection algorithm.
As a plastician fan, I'm not surprised if this ends up happening to even more producers of in his scope of genre. Theirs is a completely different culture than the DMCA/Mainstream Commercial American Pop Music - their community is very tightly-knit, and they freely pass around unreleased tracks, samples, and song stems for each other to remix. They will often hold onto a track for years before putting it on an independent label release. More underground UK artists will sadly stray away from the app altogether.
But they want to make deals with the majors, and they already have one with Warner. Which is fine, of course, but it no longer interests me personally. Instead of being a platform for indie musicians, it seems they are more interested in becoming a streaming platform for music from major labels, and that no longer interests me at all. Besides, I don't think their funding will be enough to compete in that area...
Fair point about the focus on majors. I would argue, though, that they're not completely abandoning indies, just raising the bar for entry. Like going from hypem.com to pitchfork.com
What sort of bar are you referring to? The fact that one could just use additional processing plugins on their samples to make them unrecognizable by algorithm doesn't correlate well to the quality of the track in question.
To ChrisArgyle:
Oh yes, I understand that. Even worse are the wannabe rap artists who will use the entire artist name and title of a track to "trojan horse" their own rap rendition and trick people into playing their music to drive up play counts. They're still getting away with this somehow.
But the commercial trance songs themselves are sampling other tracks (although doing it much better), and also licensing issues down to the one-shot drum samples they're using.
One of my tracks takes a Beyonce vocal stab and it processes it so much you won't recognize who the singer was - unless you knew the steps to reverse engineer it - and, you'd be surprised to find many talented audio engineers who are much better than I can do this easily. When I hear songs on the radio which use a similar technique, I can pick this up instantly. AFAIK, my track hasn't been pulled off SC yet.
Did you also know that many companies (Verizon and TMobile have been known to do this) have audio engineers who will "reverse engineer" a song their marketing team likes from an indie artist to recreate it so they don't have to pay royalties? Its not hard to trick these algorithms, and in many cases they come up with false positives anyways.
Most of the (commercial) "Industry" itself is running off uncredited samples, many of which have been cut from 1960-1980s Jazz/Blues tracks. These tracks still are technically copyrighted[0], but the artists are often not knowledgable over who is sampling their tracks, or in many cases they don't care / want people to sample their stuff. Most of their record labels have also long since died off which would have tried to protect their works as well. You would be shocked to find how wide the range of genres are of producers that are doing this.
In sum, it stinks of a moneygrab. Soundcloud became big enough to get into DMCA's non-artistic crosshairs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright...
But the commercial trance songs themselves are sampling other tracks (although doing it much better), and also licensing issues down to the one-shot drum samples they're using.
One of my tracks takes a Beyonce vocal stab and it processes it so much you won't recognize who the singer was - unless you knew the steps to reverse engineer it - and, you'd be surprised to find many talented audio engineers who are much better than I can do this easily. When I hear songs on the radio which use a similar technique, I can pick this up instantly. AFAIK, my track hasn't been pulled off SC yet.
Did you also know that many companies (Verizon and TMobile have been known to do this) have audio engineers who will "reverse engineer" a song their marketing team likes from an indie artist to recreate it so they don't have to pay royalties? Its not hard to trick these algorithms, and in many cases they come up with false positives anyways.
Most of the (commercial) "Industry" itself is running off uncredited samples, many of which have been cut from 1960-1980s Jazz/Blues tracks. These tracks still are technically copyrighted[0], but the artists are often not knowledgable over who is sampling their tracks, or in many cases they don't care / want people to sample their stuff. Most of their record labels have also long since died off which would have tried to protect their works as well. You would be shocked to find how wide the range of genres are of producers that are doing this.
In sum, it stinks of a moneygrab. Soundcloud became big enough to get into DMCA's non-artistic crosshairs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright...
There are large swaths of the SoundCloud user base that rely so heavily on sampling that they contribute very little creatively. A great example is "nightcore". Though the result is quite enjoyable it really doesn't take a lot of skill to create (wholesale copy a trance song, pitch up the vocals, speed up the track a bit, done)
What is it about sample-based music that makes it so inferior to acoustic music (on average) that culling it en masse "will result in a net increase in quality"?
edit: of order words out
edit: of order words out
Derivative work can be great, sadly lazy derivative work comes off more as theft but in the art world it's a blurry line. [1] [2] [3]
Lazy (creative) work seems of no higher quality than lazy work utilizing premade bits. Bad code made from scratch, a bad song written from scratch, or a bad sample based song...
Girltalk: http://illegalart.net/girltalk/shop/index.html
[1] http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/04/19/5-famous-copyr...
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/09/art
[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-17/richard-pr...
Lazy (creative) work seems of no higher quality than lazy work utilizing premade bits. Bad code made from scratch, a bad song written from scratch, or a bad sample based song...
Examples of pure sample based musicians:
Girltalk: http://illegalart.net/girltalk/shop/index.html
[1] http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/04/19/5-famous-copyr...
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/09/art
[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-17/richard-pr...
Don't mistake me, there is no comparison to acoustic music. I use SoundCloud daily to discover new electronic music (which I do with great success)
I'm speaking from my frustration with the sea of unimaginative "remixes" that barely diverge from the original mix.
I'm speaking from my frustration with the sea of unimaginative "remixes" that barely diverge from the original mix.
Every time a new idea for a site/app/etc. involving 'music' and the 'internet' occurs to me (or is suggested to me), I immediately reject it out of hand: "Nope, DMCA/RIAA/ASCAP/etc. -- too risky."
P.S. Take a look sometime at ASCAP's requirements and fees/rates for digital music services -- it's insane. I don't know how any service could keep ASCAP placated and turn a profit.
P.S. Take a look sometime at ASCAP's requirements and fees/rates for digital music services -- it's insane. I don't know how any service could keep ASCAP placated and turn a profit.
They're not supposed to turn a profit while complying with their rates. It's a way to make sure they stay in control of who is selling the music.
That's why we need something decentralised as torrents and as flexible and intuitive as Soundcloud.
SoundCloud got big enough to get a good slice of attention from copyright bullies, that's what happened. It's a pattern you see everywhere. If it's on a small scale, nobody really seems to care, but then the service grows and if it fails to deal with copyright infringement properly, it's going down.
Self hosting your stuff is the only reasonable way to publish these days. Everyone who could host it FOR you is falling prey to the DMCA, one after another. Either that, or work to fix this broken system.
Self-hosting is a huge PITA, especially if you don't want to give away your music for free: setting up and maintaining a streaming server and payment system is not trivial at all. Also, if you're not already a big name, self-hosting will make it unlikely for people to discover your music. This was the big thing about SoundCloud: you followed people you like and saw what they liked.
The solution is what Bandcamp does: only host stuff where the copyright situation is clear. Which means: people selling the music they themselves created. This of course excludes mixes/remixes of copyrighted music.
So you're saying there's space for a "DIY self-hosting" product which integrates with a promotion network?
No, I don't think self hosting is the solution. I still remember the times when every label had its own little online shop for mp3s. Those were dark times: not only did you have to register at every shop separately, most of those shops where just plain unusable: no pre-listening, broken id3 tags, downloading each song from an album separately, charging extra for higher quality, no accompanying artwork, etc.
As I've already written: I think Bandcamp does it very well, and IMHO it is currently the best shop for indie musicians to sell their music online.
If you're promoting music which is deemed to be copyright infringing you will have the same legal problems as if you were hosting it yourself.
Sounds like this is something Gumroad could do if they added a marketplace to list the items for sale on their platform. Difficult to categorize all those items but worth it. I'd browse.
I emailed them ages ago about being able to browse, but them and vhx.tv are not really into doing that now. Maybe later but for whatever reason they want people to reach their site and buy through the content creator's reach instead of having a searchable archive.
Building out that promotion network is the hard part.
A thousand times YES!!!
And then they send DMCAs to your hosting company and you get your hosting account suspended. Yeah, gotta fix the system...
In my experience, it's easier to explain to your hosting company than to a company with no meaningful mechanism for appeal. The system definitely needs to be fixed - I'm just proposing practical solutions in the interim. It seems unlikely to me that these problems will be fixed any time soon since fixing them would run counter to the agenda of those with the resources to lobby politicians.
Stop and think for a moment about all of the "cloud" services you use and rely on daily. Then think about what you'd do if suddenly some algorithm told the company running that service to cancel your account and bar you from access, without a way for you to appeal. For some services, you're really hosed. I've definitely been re-evaluating my decision to rely so heavily and exclusively on faceless companies for important things as E-mail and web hosting.
You do know that the DMCA applies even when you're self-hosting right?
No, the notice, takedown, etc. provisions that apply to third-party hosts do not, those are part of a adage harbor provisions for third-part hosts of user-supplied content against copyright liability that exists without the DMCA.
DMCA Title II only applies to service providers hosting third-party content. It does not apply to (or make sense for) first-party content hosting.
Yes, but you can cite fair use. The problem isn't with stolen music, it's with things like mashups being taken down.
Eh? Mashups are "stolen music" by any reasonable definition.
No, they clearly fall under fair use.
Really, under which clause?
Is it for educational purposes? Using only a small portion of the original work? Is the creator deriving no commercial benefit?
(PS: Fair Use is a legal defense, not a positive rights clearance).
See also: Bridgeport Music Inc vs Dimension Films (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dime...)
Is it for educational purposes? Using only a small portion of the original work? Is the creator deriving no commercial benefit?
(PS: Fair Use is a legal defense, not a positive rights clearance).
See also: Bridgeport Music Inc vs Dimension Films (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dime...)
It's often at least the latter two things. Sampling is huge, though, without it we wouldn't have a lot of music. IANAL but there's clearly precedent.
Most mashups I hear make heavy use of their component tracks, and I'm not even sure you could reasonably claim it as "sampling", much less fair use.
I'm highly out of the loop. Why would someone self hosting their own music be prey to DMCA?
They might fall under Title I (which is the transcription of the WIPO treaty to US law), but most mentions of DMCA are about Title II (the "Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act") which only applies to service providers, not first-party content hosting.
First-party hosting still needs an ISP though, and that ISP can be sent DMCA notices.
First-party hosting still needs an ISP though, and that ISP can be sent DMCA notices.
What is the responsibility of the ISP to its subscribers in that case? I.e. would I reasonably be able to take legal action against them if they deny me the service for what turns out to be a frivolous DMCA claim?
> would I reasonably be able to take legal action against them if they deny me the service for what turns out to be a frivolous DMCA claim?
The point of the DMCA Safe Harbour provision is that the OSP is protected if they don't involve themselves and just proxy claims assuming their are in good faith/correct. So no. You may have a claim if the OSP does not restore service after a counter-notice with no followup legal action from the claimant but they're allowed 10-14 business days for that one so you may be out for 3 weeks without any recourse, but OSPs can also rely on their TOS to make that moot and even ignore the counter-notice altogether.
You probably won't even have a claim against the originally alleged copyright owner: the notice of copyright infringement only requires "good faith belief" under no penalty of perjury.
The point of the DMCA Safe Harbour provision is that the OSP is protected if they don't involve themselves and just proxy claims assuming their are in good faith/correct. So no. You may have a claim if the OSP does not restore service after a counter-notice with no followup legal action from the claimant but they're allowed 10-14 business days for that one so you may be out for 3 weeks without any recourse, but OSPs can also rely on their TOS to make that moot and even ignore the counter-notice altogether.
You probably won't even have a claim against the originally alleged copyright owner: the notice of copyright infringement only requires "good faith belief" under no penalty of perjury.
> You probably won't even have a claim against the originally alleged copyright owner: the notice of copyright infringement only requires "good faith belief" under no penalty of perjury.
That you don't have a specific DMCA-derived or declaration-under-penalty-of-perjury-derived cause of action doesn't mean you don't have a standard defamation-based cause of action.
That you don't have a specific DMCA-derived or declaration-under-penalty-of-perjury-derived cause of action doesn't mean you don't have a standard defamation-based cause of action.
> What is the responsibility of the ISP to its subscribers in that case?
Largely, to fulfill whatever is in their terms of service, though so long as they follow the counternotice procedures in the DMCA -- which require you first to file a counternotice -- they have no liability to you for removing content in response to a facially valid (even if substantively completely false) DMCA claim, even if they would otherwise under general principles of law or your terms of service (that's why the DMCA notice/counternotice provisions are called "Safe Harbor" provisions -- they provide a shield from existing copyright liability and liability to the user whose hosted content is removed, provided, in the first case, that the notice provisions are adhered to, and, in the second, that the content was removed in response to a DMCA notice and the counternotice provisions are adhered to.)
Largely, to fulfill whatever is in their terms of service, though so long as they follow the counternotice procedures in the DMCA -- which require you first to file a counternotice -- they have no liability to you for removing content in response to a facially valid (even if substantively completely false) DMCA claim, even if they would otherwise under general principles of law or your terms of service (that's why the DMCA notice/counternotice provisions are called "Safe Harbor" provisions -- they provide a shield from existing copyright liability and liability to the user whose hosted content is removed, provided, in the first case, that the notice provisions are adhered to, and, in the second, that the content was removed in response to a DMCA notice and the counternotice provisions are adhered to.)
the funny thing is that nearly every musician learns through playing covers. be it stumbling through a riff or trying to make a mashup in FTL. some progress into soemthing the audience likes, eventually start making their own music.
which the industry then makes their profits from.
kids like Kygo - start with DJ mixes, add a bit of their flavor, get noticed by Diplo+Friends, now doing his own thing. all documented through his soundcloud account.
the way to become a master is through imitation, then refinement. from music to code to sports, does not matter.
which the industry then makes their profits from.
kids like Kygo - start with DJ mixes, add a bit of their flavor, get noticed by Diplo+Friends, now doing his own thing. all documented through his soundcloud account.
the way to become a master is through imitation, then refinement. from music to code to sports, does not matter.
Reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/743/. What's sad is that was 5 years ago, and nothing has changed since then.
Regarding self-hosting, could anyone share some technical links related to streaming? Are there good/easy ways to interactively 'chunk-stream' audio without giving away the entire file (without Flash...)?
I think the new(-ish) MediaStream APIs are designed precisely for this.
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw-file/tip/streams/StreamProc...
The simple audio element itself might be sufficient.
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/audio/raw-file/tip/streams/StreamProc...
The simple audio element itself might be sufficient.
Thank you, looking into this!
Goodbye soundcloud, I really enjoyed discovering music on their service but I cannot support this kind of behaviours. It was made me quit Deezer, and now quitting SoundCloud.
Basically there is no way a new "The KLF" could spawn nowadays...
Doesn't the fact that they're based in Germany protect them from DMCA takedowns? I always figured that locating there was a calculated move, giving them a strategic advantage on this front.
Thanks to recent international treaties and safe-harbor regulations, they are forced to comply with DMCA. Even if a song is legal in Germany, if any of the parties involved (in this case, Warner Music) is in the US, US right, with DMCA, applies.
The US is quite literally forcing its laws on the rest of the world, and it gets worse every day.
This is also why so many are against TTIP. Trade treaty with China? No problem. With Japan? No problem. With the US? Fuck it.
The US is quite literally forcing its laws on the rest of the world, and it gets worse every day.
This is also why so many are against TTIP. Trade treaty with China? No problem. With Japan? No problem. With the US? Fuck it.
Germany has Abmahnanwälte; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. The DMCA is downright reasonable and consumer friendly when compared to our system.
I've felt for the past few months that SoundCloud is just too good to be true. It feels like it's only a matter of time until they get bought out or shut down.
So I upload a DJ mix and it gets rejected because of "Copyright blah blah". Then I fill out the form and tell them "Guys, it's a DJ mix, not the song you claim it to be". I never received a response. So I guess SoundCloud is no longer for me.
If you are using copyrighted music in your mix for more than a few seconds, I'm afraid SoundCloud has no other choice.
That argument didn't work for Vanilla Ice. Why would you think your samples are immune?
What are the laws on using copyrighted material in mixes do you know ? I know Sound of Monte Carlo's soundcloud (they uplaod monthly mixes or w/e) is about to be taken down, they do use copyrighted material in their mixes though.
In the US, if you use someone else's work or recording in your work, it's derivative work and unless the original work was in the public domain or your usage constitutes "fair use" (e.g. parody), you need to get their permission.
In the UK, where Soundcloud is based, it's very similar, except the equivalent of "fair use" is called "fair dealing" and it's much more restrictive in scope.
In the UK, where Soundcloud is based, it's very similar, except the equivalent of "fair use" is called "fair dealing" and it's much more restrictive in scope.
I thought soundcloud is based in Berlin?
They're registered in the United Kingdom (England and Wales): https://soundcloud.com/imprint
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No idea about the legal situation. And to be frank I don't care. I have no economic incentive for my hobby. I consider it an art and a means of expression along the lines of singing and dancing. For all I care I am doing commercial musicians a favor for promoting their work, but really that's just an unintended side effect. SoundCloud was profiting of me giving away free content. Its people like me that enabled its business in the first place. So in the end its their loss, and they will fail because of the laws. I personally don't mourn the loss of SoundCloud as a viable publishing platform. I have many choices and it was never my primary platform to begin with (which is an independent pirate radio).
My point is that the laws don't stop the people doing the "infringing". We don't care. Its the businesses that could profit from the human need for creativity that are hurt by the absurd situation.
My point is that the laws don't stop the people doing the "infringing". We don't care. Its the businesses that could profit from the human need for creativity that are hurt by the absurd situation.
Surely, infringers of the GPL could cite the same argument?
I am sure RMS is with me on this one.
The root of all evil is blind trust in algorithms, usually by people that don't write algorithms themselves - people in charge.
We can't be both watched over by machines of loving grace and at the same time deal fairly and respectfully with each human user. I hope SoundCloud is not too big to fully pay the price of its arrogance and fade into oblivion.
We can't be both watched over by machines of loving grace and at the same time deal fairly and respectfully with each human user. I hope SoundCloud is not too big to fully pay the price of its arrogance and fade into oblivion.