It seemed as though SoundCloud was in a bit of trouble after it was unable to strike up a deal with Sony, meaning songs from heavy-hitting artists such as Adele and Kelly Clakson were removed from the site. Today, SC has announced an exciting new partnership, signing on with 20,000 indie labels.
The agreement comes through Merlin, who represent these businesses in the digital space, and has earned SC the rights to host the work of acts as big as Vampire Weekend, FKA Twigs, and Bon Iver, as well as the entire catalog of iconic electronic label, Warp.
Artists will receive royalties for their work through this new deal, as founder Alexander Ljung discussed in a statement. “Independent creators have always been at the core of SoundCloud, and with this partnership we’re thrilled to extend new revenue-generating opportunities to thousands of independent labels,” he wrote.
As we already knew, SoundCloud has also managed to ink a deal with Warner, one of the three majors, so their future is looking pretty bright.
While not a direct part of the current streaming war going on between Tidal, Spotify, and Rdio, we'll have to see what Apple's upcoming announcement will mean for SoundCloud.
[via]
