Major Record Labels and SoundCloud

Bloomberg's website has announced that Soundcloud is negotiating deals with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group to avoid being sued for copyright violations. In the event of this negotiation each record label will acquire " roughly 3 percent to 5 percent stake" in Soundcloud. Consequently, this negotiation will empower major record labels to interfere with Soundcloud's operations. The worst part of this negotiation is that this negotiation can potentially interrupt indepent artist online distribution.  As an illustration of such interruptions, Universal Music Group has recently pulled an artist track without   requesting to pull the artist track (Techdirt.com). Granted Universal Music Group only pulled down one song, it is important that independent artist recognize the power major labels now have over SoundCloud. Essentially this negotiation grants major labels the ability to raise the barriers of entry into the music industry. This tactic was already strategically put into place using Youtube.  Forbes explained on June 18th how you tube has begun to block some independent artist who didn't agree to the terms of the paid subscription service.  Youtube's new service stopped independent artist from being paid on Youtube.  As a result independent artist ability to generate revenue from Youtube was cut off.  In the end independent artist are going to have to become more self reliant if they want to continue to be competitive in the music industry.

 In order remain competitive it is crucial that independent artist create their own websites to stream their own music. This is crucial because they will have control of their website and no one else will be able to take down their projects. In addition artist will be able to lower competition. In other words the artist will be the only artist on their website. Even more important independent artist will be able to give their fans a home to come to whenever searching for their music.