Universal Music makes an agreement with Soundcloud
Universal Music Group (UMG) and SoundCloud have reached an agreement that is set to create a host of new creative, commercial and promotional opportunities for UMG’s artists and UMPG’s songwriters. SoundCloud has 175 million monthly listeners and the deal will allow UMG’s labels and UMPG Songwriters to gain access to SoundCloud’s promotional tools, analysis and data.
The agreement also allows SoundCloud to benefit from UMG’s roster of emerging and established recording artists, as well as songwriters signed to Universal Music Publishing Group, as they roll out advertising and introduce subscription services in the US and other markets later this year.
Speaking to Music Week today, SoundCloud’s chief content officer Stephen Bryan said: “We see the deal as important for a few key reasons. Obviously first of all, it means that UMG’s artists and UMPG’s songwriters will be able to have access to all of our new monetisation programmes.
“The second thing is really around our creator community and a lot of the work that we have been doing across the industry to put a framework together that will allow our creator community to continue to express themselves on the platform and to be able to create and to let that kind of expression which has always been at the core to of SoundCloud to continue to thrive in a way that is at massive scale and in a way that allows revenue to be generated from that content.”
Bryan added that with the new revenue opportunities in place, SoundCloud expects that there will be a “significant increase in the amount and diversity of content on the platform,” coming both from UMG’s labels as well as “continued content” flowing from its creator community as the company “enhances [its] ecosystem.”
Lucian Grainge, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group added: “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.”
Said Alexander Ljung, SoundCloud Founder & CEO.“With this partnership with UMG we will further strengthen and grow the unique community we’ve built over the past seven years, where multiple forms of expression can live and where artists at every stage of their careers come to create and share their work.
“Bringing together the world’s largest audio platform and the world’s largest music company means we are able to further expand SoundCloud’s role as a critical platform for creators and open up its benefits to UMG’s extensive roster of artists.
“With the majority of the music industry partnering with us, and adding to the more than 100 million tracks already available to discover on the platform, we are able to offer a service to both creators and listeners that is unrivalled in the music streaming space today.
Source: Music Week
