Supporting your favorite artist back in the day basically meant buying their records and going to their concerts. These days, it’s become about streaming, but even then, some artists feel that the cut that they are given from streaming simply isn’t good enough. However, the good news is that SoundCloud wants to change that.
In a report from Billboard, they have revealed that SoundCloud plans on introducing new ways for users to support their favorite artists by paying them directly. This means that instead of dealing with record labels, fans of an artist on SoundCloud can just pay the artist directly, although presumably they will take a cut from the proceeds.
This would be similar to other artist-based subscription and payment platforms such as Patreon, where fans of an artist can pay a monthly subscription to show their support. If this is true, it could indeed be a gamechanger for musicians. Like we said, right now the cuts that artists get tend to be based on their contracts with their labels.
This can be a bit unfair because in the streaming world, a cut goes to the platform while the label takes the rest. The label will then pay the artist based on their current contract, so obviously the further down the line it goes, the more the money becomes split. For bigger artists this might not be such a big deal as they might have other sources of revenue, like sponsorship deals, but for smaller indie artists, it might not be so easy to make a living this way.
Filed in . Read more about Entertainment, Music and Soundcloud. Source: billboard