Mumble Media 6

Online Music

The state of music and audio formats such as podcast have a fragile state on the internet. There is a great article on Wired about the financial reports coming from SoundCloud recently. SoundCloud lost 44.19 million dollars in 2014 even with the increased revenue of 15.37 million.

The article is found here

http://www.wired.com/2016/02/music-cant-last-forever-not-even-on-the-internet/

Wired’s article is based around music living on the internet right now compared to the old physical media. The state that nothing can live on the internet forever. The article does layout the pros and cons of how the internet does preserve the original sound tracks. It also cites websites like mp3.com that hosted roughly 750,000 songs before CNET owned shut it down.

Instead in 2016 there are streaming music services like Spotify that allows a ton of music albums to be played on demand.

The report from SoundCloud did cause some concern for the users of the site. SoundCloud did come out and have stated that they are not in trouble at all as they reaffirm extra funding they earned over the years. Stating again “We’re focusing on enabling creators to get paid for their creativity,” a spokesperson from SoundCloud.

SoundCloud is home to thousands of musicians and podcast creators. It allows them to create, upload and share their music on the web due to the service SoundCloud provides.

SoundCloud Did Help

If something like SoundCloud close down that would be a huge impact for music on the internet. All of the effort that people rely on to share their work for a chance to perform and gain jobs through it.

I have been there recording bands and helping them upload to SoundCloud to set a resume for themselves. I am an audio engineer in training but even having SoundCloud where music can be shared is a huge impact. It creates opportunities for musicians even to create samples to give for free to video creators on YouTube. SoundCloud made it easy and reliable.

In short I do not want SoundCloud to shut down at all. They can make it work, a way for creators to make a profit through SoundCloud.

That is it for this mumble. If there is any bits on music history that should not be missed please leave a comment to this post.
Cheers!