Can Soundcloud Become Any Less Chill? Apparently Yes.

By Hillary Crosley Coker  |  August 12, 2015 | 2:15pm
Entertainment

Soundcloud’s become particularly unchill by running ads between your favorite DJ mixes. This is after they jacked up prices for accounts and suspending mixes that didn’t include “licensed music.” Now they’re removing DJ mixes again through new copyright infringement software that can only be imagined as the sentinels from The Matrix. Help us.

According to Fact, which is a victim as well, Soundcloud has taken down the whole account of the London internet station Radar Radio. The account had 900,000 spins. Radar said they were told by Soundcloud that they had seven days to “sort out any copyright infringements” but their account disappeared the following day.

Very unchill, Soundcloud.

Elsewhere the seminal dubstep producer Plastician had his account suspended—over posting his own music, for which he owns the publishing rights.

Beyond unchill, Soundcloud.

Look, consumers aren’t idiots. We understand that money must be made to keep Soundcloud going. But removing its customers’ own creative property is counterintuitive, particularly because the platform’s creative freedom is what made it great in the first place, and the characteristic that would likely attract potential investors. From Stoney Roads:

Australian producer Souda commented: “A lot of amazing, creative, and (funnily enough) original music comes from edits or sampling. It is really oppressive to the industry to take away this source of great music and unfortunately SoundCloud will probably suffer as people move to other freer platforms.”

Irrefutably unchill, Soundcloud. Don’t become the next MySpace.

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