SoundCloud Reportedly Nears Licensing Deal With Universal
In exchange for equity and the promise to adopt a paid tier.
According to Music Business Worldwide, SoundCloud is close to reaching a deal with Universal Music Group. In the last year, the streaming service has been actively looking to come to terms with the more traditional arms of the music industry. MBI reports that UMG is looking for a "significant equity stake" in SoundCloud. (The major labels also have equity in Spotify.) In addition, the label is pushing the platform to introduce a tier for paying users, making SoundCloud more comparable to other streaming services.
MBI quotes an anonymous source who suggests that "Universal had a couple of aggressive choices: they could either sue SoundCloud, which wasn’t off the table, or refuse to play ball with them and watch them slide out of existence as money ran low. But Universal knows that a world with a SoundCloud that it can control is better than a world without SoundCloud full stop—especially if that leads to a hundred clones popping up online."