SoundCloud Reaches Licensing Deal With Universal Music

Billboard reports that SoundCloud has come to terms with UMG: the streaming service can play the label's catalog, and the label will derive advertising revenue from those streams. "One of the core components of our relationship with the industry is a new push within the deals that will enable the monetization of user-generated content like remixes and mashups," SoundCloud's Chief Content Officer, Stephen Bryant, told Billboard. "We've created a very unique ecosystem. Through these deals we have the right incentives in place."

UMG chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge also issued a statement about the deal: "With this partnership, we’re ensuring recording artists, songwriters and labels benefit, both creatively and commercially, from the exciting new forms of music community engagement on SoundCloud. We look forward to working with SoundCloud and supporting the company’s evolution into a successful commercial service."

According to Billboard, Bryant hopes that SoundCloud can launch a subscription tier before the second quarter of the year. At the moment, the main impediment to that is Sony, which has not reached a licensing agreement with the streaming platform.

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